“Yes,” Stella responded. “As a matter of fact, I am.”
Raina bit her lip and kept her thoughts to herself, grabbing the phone and dialing Larry’s number.
He didn’t answer. Not surprising. He never answered the phone after eight at night or before nine in the morning. That was another one of the things that he’d made sure Raina and Matt knew.
She slammed the phone back into the receiver, and Stella scowled. “If I promise to go over there with you when the guys get back, will you relax?”
“That depends on whether you’re any good at keeping promises,” she responded, pacing back to the window and staring out at the dark yard, the trees, the house across the street.
“I helped get your butt out of Africa, just like I promised your folks I would. I got Samuel to you safely, just like I promised you that I would. So, from where I’m sitting, I’d say I’m pretty good at keeping promises. Now, how about you sit down and be still so I can finish my book. If I can’t be on a hot date tonight, I might as well read about someone who is.” She stuck her nose back in the book, and Raina forced herself to perch on the edge of the couch and do absolutely nothing. No fidgeting, no toe tapping, no getting up to wash out the coffeepot or sweep the kitchen floor.
It had been a long time since she’d done that. As a matter of fact, she’d been going full tilt since Destiny forced her to get out of the house and get on with her life. She’d accepted a job at the clinic, gone on mission to Africa, spent hundreds of hours working to bring Samuel to the United States. She’d attended church, volunteered at local soup kitchens, created things to fill her time so that she wouldn’t have to do exactly what she was doing—sitting in the silence and listening to her own thoughts.
Maybe she should have, though.
Maybe somewhere in the hollowness of her grief, somewhere in the quiet loneliness of her new life, she’d find what she needed to move on and to heal.
Or maybe she’d just find a hundred reasons to crumble into a heap on the floor and cry until there weren’t any tears left. That’s what she’d been afraid of. That and the silence, because in it, she’d probably hear God gently nudging her soul, telling her that she couldn’t waste her life because Matt and Joseph had lost theirs. She’d probably feel Him urging her back to the little church on the bluff, and the elderly congregation that hadn’t been any more ready to let her go than she’d been ready to let go of her family.
Car lights splashed on the road, and Raina jumped up, watching as Jackson’s SUV pulled into the driveway. A pickup truck and police cruiser were right behind it.
She opened the door, ran onto the front porch, waiting while the men got out of their vehicles. They all looked grim and tired. Even the redhead with the boy-next-door face and easy smile looked somber and serious.
Something was wrong. More wrong than a fire in a trash can at the hospital.
“What’s going on?” she asked as Jackson jogged up the porch steps.
“Let’s talk about it inside.” He had a streak of soot on his cheek, and his eyes were shadowed with fatigue, but he still looked ready to do what was necessary to defend the people he cared about.
He also looked cold, his arms bare, his T-shirt no match for the chilly night air. She touched his arm, frowning at the icy feel of his skin.
“You’re cold. I’ll make some coffee for everyone,” she said, leading the way back into the house and heading for the kitchen.
Jackson grabbed her hand, his fingers twining through hers. “We nearly drowned ourselves in coffee at the hospital.”
“I could make—”
“Raina,” he interrupted, his thumb skimming across her wrist, heat sliding up her arm and straight into the cold empty place in her heart. The place she hadn’t ever wanted filled again. The place she’d locked up tight and ignored for so long she’d nearly forgotten it was there. “Just be still, okay?”
“You’re the second person who’s said that to me today,” she responded, easing her hand from his and walking to the fireplace. There was wood in the firebox, kindling in the newspaper box beside it. She hadn’t lit a fire in years, but a book of matches remained in the small box on the mantel, a lone match clinging to the cardboard. She set up the starter, lit the match, her hand shaking so much it went out before it ever got close to the kindling. She’d have to get another book from the kitchen, but first she was going to have to hear what the men had to say.
She turned back to the group, bracing herself as Andrew stepped inside and closed the door. She’d known him for enough years to read the frustration on his face, the fear, the worry.
Stella hadn’t budged from her spot on the couch, but she looked up as the door closed, her gaze skirting past the man who stood beside Andrew. Raina hadn’t been introduced, but Chance Miller had made his relationship to Jackson obvious. An inch taller than Jackson with pitch-black hair and bright blue eyes, he had the kind of face that could have been on magazine covers or on a Most Wanted poster for the FBI.
“It’s about time,” Stella muttered, dropping her book onto the coffee table and stretching. “Since everyone is present and accounted for, I’m going to get some sleep. Hopefully, when I wake up in the morning, I’ll discover that being stranded on the outskirts of Mayberry is nothing but a bad dream.”
“You promised you’d walk me over to Larry’s,” Raina reminded her.
“Right. Well, we can’t do it now. Knock on my door when the men are done with you, but by that time, I have a feeling it will be too late to bother.” She sauntered from the room as if she didn’t have a care in the world, but her shoulders were tense and tight, her movements stiff.
Once she was gone, it was just Raina and four men who were all staring at her as if she was a bug under a microscope. She met Andrew’s eyes, bracing herself for whatever it was he had to say. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know how to tell you this, Raina,” Andrew said, taking off his uniform hat and smoothing his hair. He tapped the hat on his thigh, exhausted, worried, tense. She wanted to tell him to relax, wanted to say that no matter what, everything would be okay. The words caught in her throat, though, fear keeping them trapped there.
“How about you just tell me?” she finally managed to say.
“You’ve heard that someone started a fire in a trash can at the hospital?”
“Yes.”
“After the fire department put it out, they found some things.”
“What things?”
He hesitated, then pulled a plastic bag from his pocket, set it down on the coffee table. “Take a look at these. Tell me if they’re familiar.”
She moved closer, her legs leaden, her heart racing.
A photograph nearly filled the gallon-size bag. Face up, its edges charred, dark smudges coating the glossy finish, it was a wedding photo. Not just any photo, either. The one Destiny had snapped minutes after Raina and Matt had said their vows. Unposed, they’d been captured smiling into each other’s eyes, his hand on her cheek, her hand on his waist.
“I will love you for eternity,” he’d whispered just before they’d kissed for the first time as husband and wife.
She shoved the memory away, leaned to take a closer look at the photo. Aside from the charring and the smudges, it looked...off, and she couldn’t figure out why.
“Can I touch it?” she asked, her voice thick.
“If you don’t take it out of the bag.”
She nodded, lifting the plastic bag from the table, realizing another photo was inside. She turned the bag over, her heart nearly stopping when she saw the picture. It had been taken by a photographer friend on Joseph’s first birthday. The friend had insisted on doing an outside shoot, despite the fact that it was the middle of February. They’d bundled up and gone to the church, spread a blanket out in the yard, the cold watery sunlight dusti
ng their hair and skin with gold. Joseph had taken his first steps that day, and it had been captured in the photo—a laughing little boy, his arms outstretched, four-toothed grin on his chubby face.
Only there was no face in the photo.
Not on the chubby little boy or on the man who stood in the background, both hands stretched out as he urged the toddler on. Both had been scratched out. Only Raina’s face remained untouched.
She turned the bag over again, trying to see Matt’s face through the layer of soot.
Gone. Just like in the birthday photo.
She dropped the plastic bag onto the table, stepping back so quickly, she bumped into someone. Warm hands clasped her upper arms, and Jackson’s breath ruffled her hair. “You okay?” he asked softly.
She nodded, but she wasn’t sure she was.
Andrew cleared his throat. Seeing the photos had to be hard on him, too. He and Matt had been good friends. They’d gone fishing together every summer, took care of the churchyard together. They’d met for breakfast the first Monday of the month for years. Raina wasn’t the only one who had been left with holes in her life when Matt died. “These are obviously yours, Raina,” he said. “What I need to know is whether someone made a copy of existing photos or took ones you had.”
“I...” She glanced at the plastic bag, but didn’t want to touch it again. She could almost feel the vileness of the person who’d scratched the faces out. “Don’t know. These are photos Matt kept on his desk at the church office. After he died, the office was cleaned out and his stuff was brought here. It’s in boxes upstairs.”
“You don’t know if the photos were in the boxes?”
“I never looked. I can now, if you want.”
“That’s probably a good idea. I’m going to make a couple of calls. I’ll be out on the porch if you find something.”
“Okay.” She didn’t wait for him to go, just turned on her heels and ran from the room. She wanted to run outside, race through the trees the way she had in her dreams and in her waking nightmare. Maybe if she did, she’d somehow find a way to go back in time and return to the church while Matt’s things were still in his office, those pictures sitting on his desk beckoning him to return home.
FOURTEEN
“I guess you’re going to want to take care of that,” Boone said to Jackson, settling onto the couch and picking up the book Stella had abandoned there.
“Not before he explains how he got himself into this mess,” Chance growled, dropping onto a chair. He had soot on both cheeks, and his white button-down shirt was probably permanently stained.
Jackson decided not to point it out to him. “Since it was Stella’s idea to drive Samuel here from Atlanta and since it was her decision to pick me up in D.C. and bring me along for the ride, I’d say she’s the one you’re going to want to talk to about that.”
“She went to bed. That leaves you.” Chance tried to stare him down, the bright blue eyes that he’d inherited from their mother’s side of the family nearly glowing with irritation. Charity had had eyes just like that. Only her hair had been deep auburn, her lashes golden rather than pitch-black. Thinking about their sister stole some of Jackson’s frustration. Family was family, and it mattered more than minor irritations.
Or major ones.
The floorboards above their heads groaned, and he knew Raina was up there, digging through boxes that were covered with dust, looking for photos that she’d kept hidden away for years.
Boone was right. He did want to take care of it. “I’ll explain the mess after I make sure that Raina is okay.”
“Need any help?” Boone asked, grabbing a bowl of popcorn that had been left on the coffee table and shoving a handful into his mouth.
“No. Thanks.”
He walked out of the room, half expecting Chance to follow him.
For once, his brother left well enough alone.
Maybe he was tired, or maybe he understood that what Jackson was doing had nothing to do with the case and everything to do with Raina.
He walked up the narrow stairs. There were only two rooms. The door to the one Stella was using was closed. Knowing her, it was also locked. The door to his room was wide open, light spilling out into the hallway.
Raina was sitting in front of the closet, an open box in front of her, a picture in her hands. She didn’t look up as he entered the room, didn’t acknowledge him as he sat down beside her.
“It’s hard, isn’t it?” he said, taking the framed photo she was holding and looking at the little boy who smiled out from it. “I remember when I had to go to Charity’s classroom and clean it out. She was a teacher, and she had photos on her desk and a few emergency candy bars in her drawer. She loved chocolate.”
“Matt loved his family and he loved God.” She lifted a well-worn Bible from the box and wiped dust from its cover. “Nothing else really mattered to him.”
“And your son?” Jackson said, looking at the photo again. Joseph couldn’t have been more than two when it was taken, his cheeks still chubby with baby fat. “What did he love?”
“Me.” She offered a watery smile. “Matt. Everyone at church. He especially loved the older ladies who sat in the front pew. They always had butterscotch candy or gum for him in their purses.”
She lifted a gold-wrapped butterscotch candy out of the box, tossed it back in. “I don’t think I can do this.”
“You don’t have to,” he said, wrapping an arm around her waist. “We will.”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been part of a we,” she murmured. “I’m not sure I remember how it works.”
He chuckled, pulling the box closer. “It’s probably like riding a bike. Once you learn, you never forget how.”
He lifted a handful of books from the box, checked through them to be sure no photos were stuck between the pages. “Your husband liked philosophy,” he commented as he set the books to the side and lifted a few more.
“He liked studying. There are probably books on everything in there.” She reached into one of the other boxes, pulling out a pile of framed pictures. “This is what we want to look through.”
She handed him half the stack, and he pretended not to notice that her hands were shaking. He doubted she’d want it pointed out, and it wouldn’t change anything.
He looked through one picture after another, family shots and portraits, a few of church activities. He tried not to look too closely at Joseph or to study the pictures of Raina for too long. They’d had a happy life, a good life, and it had been snatched away from them. Looking at snapshots of their life felt voyeuristic.
By the time they finished with the third box, Raina’s hands were steadier, her gaze a little less haunted.
“I guess they’re not here,” she said, setting a watercolor of a butterfly on top of a pile of photos.
“It doesn’t look like it.” He stood, pulled her to her feet. “Do you know who packed the boxes?”
“Destiny and some people I worked with. I think Andrew was there. Maybe Lucas.”
“Can you make a list of their names?”
“I have no idea who they were. Destiny brought the boxes to me and told me she’d had help,” she responded, her hand still in his, her skin silky and soft and feminine enough to remind him of how much he missed having a woman in his life. “Andrew and Lucas were the only people she mentioned by name.”
“Do you think she might remember who they were?”
“Destiny has a good memory, but it’s been years.” Her gaze dropped to the piles of things. “Funny how time passes and you don’t even realize that it has.” She sighed and tugged her hand from his. “I need to clean this mess up.”
“I can take care of it.”
“It’s okay.” She leaned over and grabbed a few of the books, dumping them into on
e of the boxes.
“Raina, it can wait.”
He was right. It probably could wait, but Raina couldn’t stomach the thought of leaving all of Matt’s things strewn across the scuffed floor. She picked up a few more books and tossed them on top of the first batch. She knew Jackson was watching, and she didn’t care, because all she wanted was to put the boxes back in the closet, close the door and forget about them again.
“Cleaning up isn’t going to make your problems go away. You know that, right?”
“I’m not trying to make anything go away.”
“Except the past, and that’s not possible,” he replied.
She met his eyes, saw compassion written clearly on his face. He knew what she felt. He’d loved his sister, lost her, had to live with that every day.
“How do you do it?” she whispered, because she wanted to know. Needed to know.
“Do what?”
“Live every day knowing that your sister isn’t around?”
“By living every day hoping and praying that I can keep other people from living the same way. By telling myself every single morning that God means for something good to come out of what happened and that the best thing I can do to honor my sister, the only thing I can do, is be a part of that. Come on. We need to go tell Andrew what we found.” His hand settled on her waist, his thumb resting on a sliver of exposed skin between her jeans and her sweater.
It felt good.
So good Raina could have turned in his arms, let her hands settle on his waist, her head drop to his chest. Let herself enjoy, just for a minute, the feeling of not being alone.
Jackson’s eyes darkened, his gaze dropping to her lips, his thumb sliding across that tiny bit of skin. Her breath caught, and she wanted to lean in and taste his lips almost as much as she wanted to turn and run.
“You better go down the steps first. The stairway is narrow,” he muttered, his hand dropping away.
She nodded, her throat too tight to speak.
She had loved Matt with her whole heart, but with him, she had never felt the quicksilver heat that raced through her when she looked into Jackson’s eyes.
Protective Instincts Page 13
