by Peggy Jaeger
“Well, one thing is certain.” Donovan stood when a knock came at the door. “You won’t be on his legal team.” He took the pages someone handed him through the doorway. “Look these over and if they’re good, sign them, okay?”
He handed each of them a copy of their statements.
After they were signed, he ushered them down to the lobby.
“I’ll call if anything else comes up, but for now,” he told Abby, “this is over for you. You don’t have to worry either of them is still after you. Neither is going to make bail, that’s a fact. Not with murder and the attack on a judge on their charge sheets.”
Abby nodded.
“I’m glad that’s done,” Rick said once they were in his car and heading back to her apartment.
With her arms crossed over her chest, Abby stared out the windshield.
“You’re quiet,” he said. It bothered him he couldn’t read her mood.
“I’m tired.” She pinched the bridge of her nose with an index finger and thumb and shut her eyes.
He reached across the seat and grabbed her hand. “It’s over, Abby. Like Donovan said, you don’t need to worry about them anymore. They can’t hurt you. Can’t get to you.”
“I know.” Her sad sigh speared him directly in the heart. “It’s all so…” She closed her eyes. “Wasteful, is the best word that comes to mind. Killing Marty. Mrs. Castle. Attacking the judge and me. I wonder if anyone else was on their payback list.”
It was a question he hadn’t considered. He sent himself a mental note to check the Edwards file when they got home.
Home. When had he started thinking of Abby’s place as home?
“Put it out of your head for now.”
She dragged in another breath. When her cell phone pinged, she reached into her purse. “From one horrible situation to another,” she mumbled. “It’s Tony.” She connected and said, “Hey.”
Traffic was its normal heavy and annoying crush, so he concentrated on driving while Abby took the call.
“When?…Is she…No. We just left Kyle Donovan at the police station…Yeah, both of them…No, we’re heading back to my apartment…Will do.” She hit the end icon. “Tony wants me to call him back when we’re home. He wants you listening in on what he has to tell us, but I can tell you Genocardi attempted to grab his son outside the hospital today.”
“What happened?”
“Maria brought Michael to the hospital like she’s done every day. She got out at the visitor entrance, and that’s when Joseph jumped at her, tried to snatch his son.”
“Christ. Where were the cops? And Josh’s guys?”
“No cops. They’re only assigned to Lila. And Josh’s guy was parking the car.”
“That’s a major fuck-up. Josh is gonna blow a gasket when hears this.”
“No lie. Anyway, when we get home, we can call Tony. He wants to tell the both of us some new details.”
“Like what?”
“Hello? That’s why we’re calling him, so he can tell us both at the same time.”
Why was her snarkiness such a turn on? A thought better left for another time.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Call Pecorrini,” Rick said. “Then you should go take a nap.”
“Bossy, much?” she mumbled while she picked up a screaming Moonlight. “Let me feed her, and then I’ll call him.”
“You fed her three hours ago. I doubt she’s hungry since she’s probably done nothing but sleep the whole time we’ve been gone.”
Abby took a box of cat food from the cabinet and poured some into a bowl, ignoring Rick’s comment.
She could feed her cat if she wanted to. He wasn’t the boss of her.
Jesus. Now she was thinking like a two-year-old. Maybe a nap wasn’t such a bad idea. It might reboot her brain back into adulthood.
“Seriously?” Rick stared down at her while she sat next to the eating, purring cat. “It’s a miracle she can move at all with the amount you feed her, Abigail.”
She stroked the cat’s back and continued to ignore him.
When Moonlight was finished, she head-bumped Abby’s leg in thanks and scuttled into the living room. After she’d rinsed the bowl, Abby pouted when she found her cat snuggled next to a typing Rick.
The traitor.
“I’m going to call Tony now,” she announced.
“Put him on speaker.”
“Duh.”
Rick glanced up at her, eyes narrowed. “You really need a nap.”
Under her breath she said, “Bite me.”
“After your nap.”
Abby’s neck heated. “You have hearing like a bat.”
“Pecorrini.”
“Hey, Tony. It’s Abby.”
“Bannerman with you?”
“Yeah. I’m putting you on speaker.”
“I just left the hospital. Maria and Michael were pretty shaken up, but thankfully Genocardi didn’t get the kid.”
“I can’t believe he had the nerve to show up at the hospital. He has to realize the police are searching for him,” she said.
“I think, from how Maria described him today, he’s decompensating.”
“What do you mean?” Rick asked.
“He’s bleached his hair white, and Maria said he was thinner, like he hadn’t eaten in days thin. He got close enough she saw his eyes and said he looked—her word—feral.”
“How did she manage to get away from him?” Abby asked.
“She screamed bloody murder, grabbed the kid, and sprinted into the hospital. The security guard at the entrance ran after him, but the guy’s pushing sixty and couldn’t keep up. By the time your brother-in-law’s guy got there, Genocardi was long gone.”
Abby glanced over at Rick and cocked her head.
“And I need to have a conversation with him about that,” Tony added. “I should have been informed he had people guarding the family.”
“He wanted to keep it on the down low,” Rick responded. “The police don’t have enough manpower to guard Maria and her family twenty-four/seven. Josh does. And the fewer people who know, the easier it is to keep them under surveillance.”
“Didn’t work so well today,” Tony said.
He sounds pissed, Abby mouthed to Rick. He gave her a shrug in reply.
“He was nowhere near Maria or the kid.”
“You’re right about that, and I’m sure Josh will take care of it. But in all fairness, no one ever assumed Genocardi would actually have the stones to show up at the hospital, especially when his wife is under police guard.”
“He doesn’t care about her at all. He wants his son, and he’s getting desperate. Desperate men do desperate things.”
“Stupid ones, too,” Rick said. “He may show up another time when they visit Lila and try to snatch the kid again.”
“That’s a thought. But the real reason I called was to make sure you guys knew he’d changed his look again. Bleached hair is very noticeable, something I don’t think ran through his head when he did it. If he wanted to make himself unrecognizable, it probably worked. But a color like that draws attention.”
He rang off a moment later with a warning to stay safe.
Abby leaned against the kitchen counter, arms crossed.
“Genocardi’s losing it.” Rick stood and walked to her, Moonlight following, meowing away. “You still mad at me for dissing your cat?“
She slanted him a look from under her lashes. “I’m not mad.”
He slid his hands up her arms and grinned. “This is your I’m-not-mad-at-you face?”
“This is my I-don’t-like-to-be-bossed-around face. I’m an adult. I don’t need you telling me when I need a nap or when I need to eat or that my cat is fat.”
His grin spread higher on one side of his face and then the other.
Damn it. Why did he have to be so…so…charmingly male?
“I knew you were mad about that. And she’s not fat. But she will be if you keep feeding her every hour.”
“I don’t—”
“I know why you do it, Abby. I’ve been around you enough the past few weeks to understand how your mind works. After today I realized I was right.”
She narrowed her gaze.
He pulled her against his chest. She fisted her hands at her sides and kept them there, refusing to touch him.
And why did he have to smell so good? It wasn’t fair. She had no defenses against him.
“You adopted a three-legged cat no one else wanted and because you want her to feel secure, you sit with her when she eats so she knows she’s loved and cared for and won’t be abandoned.”
Abby moved a little closer into the embrace and unfurled her fingers.
“You aid a grandmother so she can keep her granddaughter with her and allow the kid to be safe and know she’s loved.”
Abby sighed and closed her eyes.
“You go to bat for a kid who’s had some lousy breaks in life and even though he tried to harm you, you can actually put yourself in his shoes.”
She lifted her hands, wound them around his waist.
“You greet all the security guys in your office building every morning with a smile and a question about their families. You notice them, treat them like family. See them.”
Without thinking about it, she slid her hands up his back and crossed them, hugging even closer.
“You gave a job filled with responsibility to a woman with no formal education, who was in an abusive relationship for twenty years and was only able to find the courage to leave it because you believed in her.”
Abby lifted her head and stared up at him.
“Verna told me all about what you did for her. You give a voice to people who don’t have one because you know firsthand what that’s like, and you try to help them live better lives. You’re a nurturer, Abby. Whether you believe it or not. You want people, animals, even those who’ve made bad choices, to all know someone cares. That you care, even if no one else does.”
He cupped her chin and rubbed his thumb across her mouth.
“You want to take care of everyone, Abby, but you don’t want anyone to take care of, or worry about, you.”
“I’m used to taking care of myself, Bannerman. I’ve been doing it for a long time.”
“You have. But it’s okay to lean on someone, you know. To let someone else shoulder a burden or two. To take care of you for once.”
His kiss was so soft, so sweet, so filled with emotion, she quite simply lost her breath.
“Let me take care of you, Abby,” he whispered against her cheek. “Let me.”
How could she possibly resist this man? Resist what he was offering? She knew, deep in her core, he could shatter her, destroy her, heart and soul. He’d leave her when he was convinced she no longer needed him. She knew it. But right now she didn’t care. Right now, it was so blessed good to be in his arms, letting go of all her worries. Right now, all she wanted was to give herself to him and think about everything else later.
Much later.
Her lips sought his. She raised her hands to his shoulders and clung, sliding every inch of her body against him.
Without ever breaking contact with her mouth, Rick lifted her and carried her to the bedroom. Their clothes were quickly dispatched to a mixed pile on the floor.
He stretched out on top of her and cradled her face in his hands.
“Abby.” His fingers swiped at her cheeks and he let out a deep breath.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I’m just realizing how being around you makes me want to be a better man.”
Tears threatened, but she willed them back. Her fingers reached up and traced his grooved brow, smoothing it. “You’re a better man than you give yourself credit for, Rick. In every way.”
She kissed him.
“Only with you,” he answered.
After that, neither spoke again.
****
She woke with Moonlight snuggled against her back, the space beside her empty. Abby fell to her back, eliciting a sleepy harrumph from her cat, and stretched her arms above her head.
She felt…better. Not so out of sorts and grumpy anymore. But was it because of the nap or Rick’s lovemaking?
He’d been so tender, so gentle with her, as if she were something precious to be treasured and adored. And that’s how she’d felt in his arms. As she’d fallen asleep holding his hand, she remembered thinking she could sleep like this every night for the rest of her life.
She was in love with him. There was no other explanation. She was completely, head over heels, chick-flick-movie-channel in love. For a girl who’d spent the better part of her life dealing in dry facts, case law, and logic, to have such overwhelming and unfamiliar emotions running through her was terrifying.
But exciting, too.
Smiling to herself, Abby tossed back the covers when her stomach growled and shook into a T-shirt and pajama bottoms. She lifted her cat and chuckled when Moonlight gave her throaty, sleepy protest growl. “Rick’s right about you. You’re gonna get fat if you just eat, sleep, and lounge around all day.”
She carried her into the living room where she found the man in question…folding towels?
Good God, he was.
“Did you do more laundry?“ she asked. Moonlight wiggled, so she let her down.
“Few things. I wish I had a washer/dryer in my place. It would make life easier instead of having to lug it out all the time when I need clean stuff. Hey, cat.” He stretched a hand down and petted Moonlight. When his eyes lit back on her, he asked, “Something wrong?”
She moved toward him and lifted a folded towel to her face. The lavender scent hit her senses in a heartbeat. “You used fabric softener.”
“Yeah. It was sitting there, on top of the machine. Why? Shouldn’t I have? I thought that stuff made everything softer.”
Slowly, she lowered herself to the coffee table and sat directly in front of him. She laid the towel back onto the pile, her eyes never leaving his face.
“Okay, now you’re freaking me out a little, Abs. What’s with the look? Did I do something wrong with the tow—”
She didn’t let him finish. Instead, she grabbed his shoulders and clamped her mouth onto his.
Rick wove his arms around her waist and lifted her on to his lap. Leaning back on the couch, she straddled him, her hands cradling his cheeks, and fused her mouth to his.
Moonlight’s loud chatter as she jumped up next to them and tried to crawl into Abby’s lap was what finally made them pull apart.
Lips slick and wet from their kiss, Rick scowled down at her. “Way to kill a mood, cat.”
Abby giggled and petted her head. “She must think we’re playing. She wants to be included.”
The glare Rick leveled at her made her glad she wasn’t standing. The cauldron of heat in his eyes was enough to turn her legs liquid.
He snaked a hand around her neck and wormed his fingers through her hair. “We’re doing the furthest thing from playing I can think of.”
Every hair on Abby’s body drew to attention. That statement told her so much about what he was feeling, that her heart quite simply turned over. She leaned forward so her brow rested against his.
“Rick.” She sighed and closed her eyes.
“Look at me, sweetheart.”
She was afraid to. Afraid he’d see everything she felt and wanted swimming in her eyes.
Abigial Laine, the lawyer who stared down liars and cheats and abusers until they squirmed, was afraid to look the man she loved in the eyes.
How ridiculous was that?
Was it, though? Understanding the type of man Rick told her he was, his aversion to long term commitments and his fear of being like his father, she didn’t want him to see the depth of her feelings, too scared when he did he’d head for the door and out of her life.
And she wanted Rick in her life. If it was for a month, a week, or even only for the next hour, she wanted to be with him.
So she did what she always did when she was afraid: she took a mental breath.
“Abby?”
She opened her eyes.
His own were concerned, his mouth pulled into a question. “Are you okay?”
She hesitated for the briefest of moments, then shot him a smile. With her palm pressed against his cheek, she said, “Watching you fold laundry has infected me with the domestic bug, so I’m going to make us a huge dinner that would make my chef sister proud.”
She bounded off his lap after first giving him a quick, hard kiss.
When she opened the refrigerator, she heard him say, “Don’t look at me, cat. She’s your mother.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Well, you’ve had quite the exciting few days,” Verna said the next morning.
“Please.” Abby accepted the hug the older woman gave her. “I’d rather go back to busy and boring.”
“Busy I can give you. I’ve rescheduled your appointments for today. Phoebe’s been getting all the court documents together for your upcoming appearances, and she’s put them on your desk, in order. She’s in class until one, but she wanted to get everything ready for when you needed it. The cases assigned to Judge Aaronson have been rerouted to Judge Finkelstein, and I added their dates to your computer calendar. I still need you to sign off on a few documents, but other than that, we’ve managed without you fairly well.” The woman glanced over at Rick and then back to Abby. “But I am glad you’re back, and you’re safe.”
“Me, too.”
“First client’s at ten, so you’ve got some time to catch up.”
“Honestly, Verna, I don’t know what I would do without you. Thank you for managing everything.”
“No thanks necessary. It’s my title, anyway. Office manager.”
They both laughed.
“I’ve got some calls to make,” Rick said when they got into her office.
“Go ahead. You won’t disturb me.”
He shook his head. “I’m gonna go plant myself in your paralegal’s space since she’s not due in for a while, give you some privacy. Don’t worry.” He kissed her brow. “I’m not leaving. I’ll be within shouting distance for a bit, is all.”
Abby nodded.
