Shielded in the Shadows

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  Every part of her approved of him.

  Her ringing phone interrupted a feeling of contentment she hadn’t experienced in a while. It was Luke Lincoln’s arresting officer.

  She listened, nodded, and hung up, noticing that Jayden had also taken a call.

  “Luke?” she asked as he also disconnected.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  “You have to go?”

  There’d been a miscommunication between court deputies and, instead of being taken to the holding cell to wait for a ride back to jail that afternoon, Luke had been released.

  “No. Not yet, anyway. Officers have been sent to get him. Technically he hasn’t broken the law by leaving. He was told he could go. Might even think, with the win in court today, that he really is free.”

  Technically. “I have to call up north again.” She was thinking aloud. “I know his wife and daughter are safe, but I need to let them know...”

  “I was told someone from the department already made that call.”

  The relief she felt, knowing that she didn’t have to put her work hat back on right then, was a bit startling. Emma was always ready to work. Was energized when she was needed.

  Had to be the wine.

  It most certainly could not be the man.

  * * *

  Refusing to be an animal that jumped the bones of his dinner companion without foreplay, finesse or tenderness, Jayden forced his libido to calm down and tried to focus on the food they were sharing. He liked to eat. He just didn’t bother to put forth the effort to eat well. Mostly he settled for canned stuff. Frozen stuff. Fast-food stuff.

  When he saw his parents—at least once a month to keep them happy—he ate all weekend.

  Emma had done his steak proud, though. She’d scraped right down to the bone with her knife. And devoured the baked potato and salad, too. He liked that she wasn’t so conscious of calories that she couldn’t eat a good meal.

  And wondered where she put it all. She wasn’t skinny, but there was nothing extra on her, either.

  He’d noticed. Again and again.

  She’d finished her glass of wine. He hadn’t, but he’d enjoyed what he’d had. When he offered to pour her more, she’d declined, reminded him she was driving.

  A sign that she wasn’t planning to stick around awhile.

  And yet she didn’t get right up and leave, either.

  They cleared the dishes and when he offered her an iced tea, she accepted. And followed him out as he closed the grill, sitting back down as though she was in no hurry to leave.

  He was in no hurry to have her gone.

  And was growing more and more increasingly bothered by her determination to see Bill Heber back in jail. They’d been talking about work on and off all evening. In between general discussions about their work lives.

  Seriously, what else did either of them have to talk about? They were workaholics.

  And not falling in love.

  “What is it about this Heber case that has you so bothered?” he asked when she brought them back to the fact that he’d found no substantial evidence against Bill Heber that morning. He hadn’t yet mentioned that he’d found an ice cream shop not far from Bill’s house and that Bill had been there enough to be known to the owners.

  He was keeping the information to himself at the moment for a very good reason. Bill’s visits didn’t coincide with the times Emma had given him. The man just liked his chocolate ice cream.

  And Jayden had to figure out how to help Emma see that.

  “I’m bothered by all my cases that feel like failures. In this instance, I’ve got a chance to make it right. I’m not going to blow it.”

  “Is this the first case you’ve had that gave you the ability to right a wrong? Surely you’ve had someone reoffend and gotten another go at him or her.” She’d been at the job for eight years. Some failures happened.

  “Of course I have, and no this isn’t the first time I’ve faced this situation.”

  “So why is this one so bothersome to you?” The woman was clearly deflated, as though she’d hung everything on his location app nailing Heber. That was understandable. But he was far more bothered by the Luke Lincoln issue. Emma was bothered, too, clearly, but not as much as she was by Heber.

  “They’re all bothersome to me.”

  “Forgive me for overstepping...” She’d stayed, which invited the conversation as far as he was concerned. Plus, he just plain wanted to know. “But it seems... almost...personal.”

  “Like you feel Bill’s right to have a second chance, you mean? That’s personal.”

  Her jab hit its mark. “Probably.”

  She held his gaze. “It’s the baby,” she finally said. “He killed his baby, while it was still in its mother’s womb. That’s heinous.”

  “You were not able to prove that at trial.”

  “Suzie told me it was him. She just got scared and wouldn’t testify because she didn’t want to be pulverized by the defense attorney.”

  “Bill told me that she miscarried because of ill health. She wasn’t eating or sleeping. Was a nervous wreck.”

  “Yeah, because he was beating her.”

  “He claims he was insanely jealous of her,” Jayden said, hoping he could bring some good to both of their days by putting this one to rest. “He was scaring her, making her life miserable. He was guilty but he wasn’t hitting her.”

  He looked Emma right in the eye. Willed her to see the truth.

  “That’s not what the facts say.”

  Suzie’s testimony. That she wouldn’t give in court. The medical record stated that blunt force trauma had contributed to the miscarriage, but if Suzie had been healthy to begin with, the baby might have survived. The doctor’s opinion was that the trauma was likely the result of another human being.

  Likely. Not proved.

  Like Suzie’s current injuries.

  They could tell from bruise marks, indentations, directionality of blows, that Suzie’s current injuries were human inflicted. There’d been no such clear marks four years before—and he’d proved Bill hadn’t been around Suzie and able to hurt her since his release.

  “Bill takes full accountability for the miscarriage, for causing Suzie so much anxiety that she’d lost their baby. His remorse is real. Palpable. This is not an aggressive man,” he told her. “He wants only to do what he can to make her life easier, and if that means staying away from her, that’s what he’ll do. His location app proves it. He’s working his ass off, taking way more hours than he needs to, so that he can send money to her.”

  “He’s required to pay alimony.”

  “He’s doing it because he wants to. Because he needs to.” And as soon as Bill made more of it, he’d send more to Suzie.

  Jayden didn’t like the hesitancy in her gaze as she looked at him, like she was doubting him. Not Bill. “Are you telling me that you aren’t going to keep him on your radar? You’ve decided he’s not a danger?”

  “Absolutely not.” He wasn’t just saying that to get back in her good graces. He wouldn’t do such a thing, just in theory, and certainly not to Emma. “I’m fully aware that I’m human and could be wrong. I’ve been wrong. I just want to make sure that, in case we’re wrong, someone is still looking for another abuser.”

  “Chantel is all over it. If there’s something else out there, she’ll find it.”

  So...why wasn’t she relaxing a bit? Luke’s ex-wife and daughter were in more immediate danger, in Jayden’s opinion, and yet Emma trusted the system to take care of them.

  Maybe because they were currently in a secure shelter.

  The answer was valid. He acknowledged that as it came to him. He just didn’t think that’s all there was to it.

  As a probation officer, he’d gone as far as he could go.

  As her possible
future lover, he’d already gone farther than he should.

  Jayden had no acceptable reason for pursuing the conversation. But he felt compelled to anyway.

  “Suzie Heber...it’s personal, somehow, isn’t it?”

  Chapter 11

  Emma had no idea why she was still sitting there. As hot as he was, as much as she was turned on by him...she just wasn’t feeling the sex this night.

  She was too sick inside to feel wanton. And Jayden was part of the cause. She knew he’d done his job well. That he’d risked his life to get Luke in custody. She couldn’t say that she’d have thought to report evidence of someone napping on the couch in relation to an illegal gun possession. But there it was...

  Luke was loose. She’d somehow lost control of something she’d thought a sure win. Not somehow. She knew how. Jayden hadn’t given her the full information and Luke’s judge had found his sister credible.

  There was still the parole hearing. At least a preliminary to determine if Luke was going to have his parole revoked for being in the home with a gun.

  “I take it, since you aren’t answering my question, that I’m right. The Suzie Heber thing is personal...”

  He’d admitted to her that giving Bill a second chance was personal to him. That second chances were personal. He’d given her as much knowledge as he’d thought she needed.

  If she was going to do that job, partnering with him as she’d chosen to do, she had to acknowledge her own weakness, didn’t she?

  She stared at him, seeing the counselor more than the officer. Maybe because he wasn’t wearing his gun.

  Maybe her shadow side was choosing this most inopportune moment to surface. Maybe she didn’t need to tell him any more about herself.

  She sipped her tea. What would it hurt?

  “I got pregnant my senior year in high school.” The words flew out while she was still debating whether or not her desire to tell him something that no one in her professional life knew of was valid, or the result of her shadow side rearing her head.

  His head tilted to the side a little, his gaze a new kind of warm as he looked at her. But he didn’t push. Or probe.

  “The father...he didn’t seem all that fazed by it. Said I could do what I wanted with the pregnancy. That things would work out either way. He also didn’t offer any real support. But he didn’t dump me. My parents were devastated, of course. And me...my whole world changed...every breath I took felt different. My future looked different. And yet... I wanted that baby. Hard to believe you could love something that you wouldn’t even know was there if not for a test you’d taken...”

  Here was the time when she shut up. Walked away.

  She couldn’t even look away.

  “Did your parents pressure you to abort? You can’t blame yourself if you did as they asked...”

  She almost went with that story. It fit closely enough for her current purposes in telling him anything at all. Though, what exactly that purpose was, she wasn’t altogether sure.

  “They talked over all of the options with me and then asked me what I thought I should do.” She remembered, smiling a little through the profound sadness. She’d thought she was over the critical intensity of that feeling. Hadn’t experienced it quite this badly in years.

  Ms. Shadow and her drama.

  “I wanted to keep the baby,” she said, looking Jayden straight in the eye. She was doing this—telling him—and she was going to do it right. “I’d created a life, and it wasn’t about me anymore. It was about that baby.”

  Until the night...

  “How did they react to that?” His words came softly into the soft light of the moon as he reached up and turned off the light in his pagoda. She hadn’t even noticed darkness had fallen.

  “They were worried, of course, but also excited about the baby coming. At least, my mom was. She was making plans, volunteering that she’d babysit so that I could still go to college, that she’d turn the spare room in our home into a nursery, but wanting me to make all of the decorative choices because it was my baby...”

  Tears pushed up from inside her, far more dangerously close than they ever got these days. Her mom had been so great. And Emma had taken it all for granted. A kid who’d been so hooked to the wild man who’d impregnated her that when he’d begged her to get on the back of his motorcycle and ride the drag race with him, she’d hopped on.

  “A group of guys had been racing bikes for about six months. Spectators would all chip in money. Each time there was some new challenge that they’d get right before the race began. That night the requirement was to have three people on your bike. And the prize money was a thousand dollars. The baby counted as his third person...”

  Jayden’s brow furrowed, but otherwise his expression didn’t change.

  Finding her throat inordinately dry, Emma took a gulp of tea.

  “The stretch of road was fairly simple and everyone knew Keith was the best biker around. He’d never had a wreck...”

  But he had that night. He’d slid out at the turn, had to lay down his bike...

  “I was thrown from the bike,” she said, swallowing. Taking another sip from her glass.

  Whatever the hell was happening, she was in way over her head.

  “You lost the baby,” Jayden said when she was pretty sure she’d finished talking about it.

  She nodded. And now he knew. She’d basically killed her own child. Not really. Not in any legal or maybe even moral sense. But under her own accountability test...

  There was no way she could fail to save Suzie a second time.

  “I’ve prosecuted and lost a couple of other cases involving fetal deaths,” she said, finding half a brain somewhere in the midst of the emotion and waywardness attacking her. “One a domestic violence case. The other a landlord who refused to fix faulty wiring and a fire broke out. The mother suffered severe enough smoke inhalation that she lost her baby.”

  As difficult as the conversation was, it wasn’t overpowering her now. She was back in her element. In control. Jayden was a good listener.

  “My point here is that I know Suzie Heber told the complete truth four years before. I know what her husband does to her. I know this based on the evidence before me, the interviews Suzie gave, the compelling reports that were offered live in court. Not based on what I might want to believe. And this time? Yeah, maybe I feel some personal emotion to it all, but I’m out to see justice served for Suzie. For the baby she lost through no choice of her own. Not for myself.”

  Emma had no doubts. No wavering. Nothing but a sense that she was doing what she had to do. What was right to do. No matter what Jayden thought.

  * * *

  Jayden leaned in then and kissed her. Probably the absolute wrong thing to do. He did it anyway. Just leaned over, ignoring the slight twinge in his side, and planted his lips squarely on hers. She’d bared her soul to him, and he’d just needed to connect with her in a tender, personal moment. A sign of caring. Of support. Not of desire.

  It was possible he’d have straightened right afterward. Apologized. But when her lips moved against his, opening slightly, he pressed harder, opening his mouth to taste her more completely. To let his tongue talk to hers and come to an agreement the two of them couldn’t seem to reach any other way.

  Their jobs took everything. And somedays, it raised emotions that needed an outlet. Something that would dispel built-up tension when winning the case wasn’t an immediate option.

  Without breaking from the kiss, he put his hands at her waist, and stood, helping her up with him. She took a step, he leaned, and their bodies came together, moving side to side, just enough to create friction where he was hurting most. Reaching a hand down, Emma cupped him there. He swelled even more, eager to do what they must to deactivate the attraction that would inevitably detonate at some point and kept distracting them from what mattered mos
t to both of them.

  The job.

  He was ready to lay her down on the lounger not two feet away. To push her skirt up her hips, get her panties out of the way and come.

  Condom. The thought floated in and out. Wallet.

  She was rubbing slowly, methodically, on his fly, her tongue kissing him with more fire than he’d ever felt from a woman. Her nipples were rock-hard. He could feel them against his chest. Arms around her, he pulled her closer, meaning that they touched with more pressure, not more completely. The only way to be more complete was to get unnecessary clothing out of the way and be inside her.

  Moving against her hand, Jayden had to remind himself to slow down. No matter how urgent the business matter at hand, she deserved a man who respected her womanhood, not an animal about to devour her.

  “You want to move this inside?” he asked, thinking that the bed would be more comfortable to her. And his wallet...was it in his back pocket?

  “Something wrong with that lounger?” She moaned against his lips, sending more shuddering need through him.

  “Hell no,” he muttered back. Having sex outside...hell yeah.

  She was reaching for his fly. He went for her breasts. Cupping them simultaneously, no padding there, moving his palms against the tips while she worked the button on his jeans. The closure gave and the relief of pressure was both a blessing and a curse. He slid his hands inside her blouse, liking the thin silk separating his skin from hers. So thin, he slipped beneath it easily and then around to undo the clasp. Almost as easily as she yanked down his zipper.

  He sprang free. He had to have her. The pain was almost excruciating.

  Her breasts were partially bared now, the nipples exposed to the warm night air. Had he undone those buttons? Hoped to God he hadn’t ripped them.

  Pushing her backward, holding her tight as he guided them toward the lounger, Jayden sank his tongue deeply into her mouth, mimicking other things he’d like to do with it. Thinking about them. And still somehow managing to get her on her back without falling on top of her.