Everything She Wanted (7 page)

“He’s guilty as hell.” The detective shook his head and stuffed his hands in his pockets.

They stood on the path. Ben turned and stared back at the front door. “Margo gave him those bruises.
He tried to hide it, but he’s favoring his right leg. I’ll bet that’s where she cut or stabbed him.”

“Without the blood evidence back, prints, something to prove he was in that house, I’ll have a hard time getting a judge to sign a warrant to get his DNA and a look at his person.”

“His lawyer will do everything possible to keep you from getting it. You need to find something, however small,
linking him to the crime besides the obvious motive.”

“I’m working on it.”

“Test Donald’s blood against the blood on the knife. See if it’s a familial match. That will get you the warrant for Evan’s blood.”

“The lab guys will test everything, but it could take weeks.”

“Put a rush on it. If Evan leaves the country, we’re screwed.”

“God, he’s an asshole.” The detective rolled
his eyes.

“Assholes with money always think they can get away with anything. Let’s prove him wrong.” Ben headed back down the path to their car. “Drive me back to Margo’s. If Kate’s not there, I’ll call her and fill her in.”

Ben stared out the car window on the short drive, thinking about Kate and all she’d been through tonight. The next few days and weeks wouldn’t be easy. One thought
nagged at him.

“They don’t want Alex to get anything,” he said, thinking out loud.

“They hinted they’d like to take control of him and whatever inheritance he might get.”

“Never going to happen.”

“It might if Kate’s not in the picture.” The detective pointed out Ben’s worst fear.

They’d already killed Donald and Margo to ensure their financial future. Ben’s gut soured knowing
they’d remove any obstacle in their way. Kate’s sad eyes and tear-­streaked face came to mind. He’d protect her. Nothing and no one would harm her or Alex.

Was he this determined to protect her simply because of what Morgan told him? The building urge to help her said otherwise. The overwhelming need to see her again came from a deeper place. One he didn’t know existed. One no other woman
had sparked to life.

E
VAN LEANED
HIS
back against the door and hung his head. “Fuck.”

“We will be if we don’t control this situation. I’ll contact our lawyer first thing in the morning. Is there any possible way they can tie you to this directly?”

Evan rubbed his hand over his aching thigh. The cut stung and throbbed under his palm. “I forgot to pick up the fucking knife.”

“What?
No! How could you be so stupid?” his mother spat out.

“I’d just killed my own father and blown that woman’s head off,” he yelled back. “I wasn’t thinking straight. I thought it would be easy, but it wasn’t.” He held his hands up and stared at them. “My hands were shaking, I tried to set up the scene to look the way I wanted between the two of them, and I forgot she’d cut me.” He dropped his
hands back to his sides. “I didn’t really feel it until I was on my way back here.”

“This is a mess.”

“Only if they get my DNA. Otherwise, they can’t link the blood to me.”

“Maybe we can get someone in the police department to destroy the evidence.”

“Seriously, how are you going to do that?”

“Pay them off.”

“You think that won’t be traced back to you?” Evan shook his head
and tried to think. “If they do pin this on me, I’ll leave the country before they lock me in a cage. You’ll still get the bulk of the estate. You can send me money to live on.”

“Your father’s bastard is going to get half the estate, if not all.”

“How do you figure that?”

“Your father served me with divorce papers. My lawyer will fight that I am still his legal wife and entitled to
the estate, but if your father signed papers saying he left everything to that boy . . .”

Evan came to the inevitable conclusion. “We’re fucked.”

Chapter Eight

B
EN PULLED UP
in front of Kate’s condo. He got her address from Detective Raynott and drove over, deciding not to call her this late at night. After the day she had, he expected her to be crashed out in bed. Instead, the downstairs windows showed all the lights on. If they’d been out, he’d have driven home and called her first thing in the morning. Those lights drew
him in like a beacon.

He parked in the visitor parking area, got out of the car, and dragged his tired ass to her front door. He liked the pots of yellow pansies flanking the dark green door.

Alex cried at the top of his lungs. The sound made Ben’s chest tight. Anxious and nervous, he knocked. His gut knotted with anticipation at seeing Kate’s pretty face again. He liked her. They had
a lot in common. They both spent their lives trying to help others in their own ways. She as a social worker, helping teen runaways and foster kids. Him working with abused women and their children. He wanted to get to know her better. He wished they didn’t have her sister’s murder and Alex’s inheritance to deal with while he did that.

If she was even interested in getting to know him better.
She’d never given him any indication she liked him more than an acquaintance and colleague, except for that kiss. It played in his mind and made him want. He wanted that feeling she evoked in him back.

He’d play it by ear.

Kate opened the door with Alex in her arms. Her gaze met his and the relief he saw there unknotted his stomach. “Thank God you’re here. I didn’t hear from you and got
worried.”

“What’s wrong with him?” Ben tilted his head toward Alex.

“I think he knows his mother is gone. He wants her. Nothing I do is good enough. He just keeps crying.” Tears shimmered in her red-­rimmed eyes and spilled over. “I don’t know what to do.”

Ben stepped into her apartment, making her back up. She didn’t exactly invite him in, but the desperation in her voice prompted
him to act. He closed the door behind him. Kate stood close, looking up at him, waiting for him to do something. He wanted to kiss her and make this all go away. A crazy thought he didn’t act on.

“Give him to me.” Ben held out his hands.

Kate handed Alex over, sighing and shaking out her arms. The boy didn’t weigh much, but she must have been holding and carrying him for quite some time.
She’d changed out of her slacks and blouse from earlier into a simple navy blue tank dress. She’d pulled her long curls up into a messy knot at the back of her head. The fatigue etched lines on her forehead and made her shoulders sag. Nearly two in the morning, she and Alex should both be sleeping. Neither looked ready to call it a night, too wound up to relax into sleep.

Ben tucked Alex in
the crook of his arm and held him close to his chest. He snagged the pacifier off the coffee table and pushed it into Alex’s open mouth. He tried to spit it out, but Ben held it gently in place as Alex cried around it. He bounced the boy up and down. “Shh. It’s time for you to sleep, buddy,” he whispered.

Kate stood in the middle of the room, wiping the tears from her cheeks, a lost look in
her eyes that tore at his insides. Alex’s cries softened, but he wasn’t quite ready to give up yet.

“Turn most of the lights off, Kate. The darkness will help him calm down and fall asleep.”

Kate automatically started hitting switches on the kitchen wall and turning off one of the lamps in the living room space.

“Which one of those stuffed toys is his favorite?”

Kate picked up
a black and white spotted puppy. “I gave him this in the hospital when he was born. Margo said he doesn’t sleep without it.” Kate placed the puppy on Alex’s belly and fell into the corner of the sofa, sobbing out her grief.

Ben didn’t think, just went with instinct. He sat beside her, bounced Alex in one arm, and held Kate to his side with the other. She came willingly and pressed her face
into his shoulder. Alex held the puppy in his hands, sucked his pacifier, and slowly drifted off to sleep, hiccupping a few times after all those tears.

Kate’s tears ran out, but she didn’t pull away. Her head turned, and she laid her cheek against his chest and sighed. Though her body pressed against his, she kept her hands tucked between them at her side. She didn’t really touch him, but
he wanted her to. It felt so right to have her next to him, even with Alex tucked close in his arm. The baby’s sweet face softened in sleep.

“It’s going to be all right,” he assured Kate. Comfortable with the two of them, he propped his feet on the coffee table and settled into the sofa, ready to stay as long as they needed him.

They needed him.

A warm glow flared to life inside of
him that spread to all the cold abandoned places he’d hid deep within himself. He helped others who needed him, but it didn’t feel like this.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Alex hates me. He wants his mother.”

Ben smiled and leaned his cheek on top of Kate’s head. “He doesn’t hate you. He misses his mother like you miss her. He sees that you’re upset and sad and he feels that too.
He needs you, Kate.”

“What happened tonight with Donald’s wife and son? Did Detective Raynott arrest Evan?”

“I wish I could tell you that he did and this will all be over soon. Evan showed a few glimpses of remorse for his father, but he didn’t confess anything, or really give anything away. I did see some bruises on his face and ribs. He’s trying to hide a limp.”

“Margo got a piece
of him.”

“Margo tried to kick his ass.” Ben brushed his cheek over Kate’s soft hair. He absently traced circles on her bare arm with his fingertips. He felt her awareness of him beside her. She didn’t move away, so he kept touching her softly, hoping to comfort her and draw her closer to him. “I like your sister.”

“She was amazing in her sweet way. You look at her and see all this softness
in her hazel eyes, blond hair, and light complexion, but under it all she could be strong and tough.”

“Not as tough as you though, right?” he guessed.

“We looked out for each other, but I took care of her more than she took care of me. I loved her for holding on to her optimism and dreaming for all those pretty things we didn’t have growing up. That’s all she wanted—­a husband, a child,
a happy home and life. She almost had it all and they took it away from her. I can’t—­I won’t—­let them get away with it.”

“
We
won’t let them get away with it.”

“Why are you doing this? Why are you here? What do you want?”

Ben tried to sort out the many answers circling his mind. “You and I have a mutual enemy in Evan. I want to see him pay for his sins just as much as you do. I’m
here to help you with whatever you need. We want the same thing, Kate, and if we work together maybe we can both get what we want.” He meant Evan behind bars, but something deep inside of him whispered that he wanted a hell of a lot more from her.

“I’ve never really been good at being a team player. I look out for myself. With my background in the system, I am fully aware of my hang-­ups about
trusting others, let alone relying on them.”

“You can trust me. I won’t let you down. I want you and Alex to get everything that’s coming to you, and that includes justice for your sister and Alex’s father.”

“I believe you. It’s so unexpected and strange that you showed up tonight. After what happened before . . .”

The kiss. “That was the past. Someone I know would simply say this
was meant to be.”

“Whatever this is, I’m glad you’re here. And that surprises me too.”

No more than Morgan’s prediction coming true surprised him. Where this thing went with Kate, he didn’t know, but he was committed to seeing it through to the end.

“Speaking of surprises, Evan and Christina Faraday didn’t know about Alex.”

Kate tilted her head up to look at him. Her lips parted
with surprise. Her soft breath washed over his skin. If he bent a few inches, he could kiss her. She kept her gaze locked on his, ignoring or oblivious to the pull between them.

“What?”

“They knew about your sister’s affair with Donald, but not that they had a son.”

“Huh. I assumed she knew about Alex even though Margo didn’t think so. Donald always said he and his wife hadn’t been
close in years. I hoped she knew the divorce was inevitable. Donald promised for over a year to make it happen, but put it off for one reason or another until he did it without really telling Margo his intentions.”

“So, it came out of the blue.”

“In a manner of speaking. Evan has gotten into trouble a ­couple of times over the last few months.”

“The bar fight Donald paid to get him
out of, then a DUI arrest.”

“Right. Something happened that set Donald off. Maybe he’d just had enough with Evan and Christina dragging him down. You should have seen him with Margo and Alex. When they were all together, they looked so happy. Especially Donald. Sometimes I’d catch this look on his face that he felt lucky to have them and a second chance at a happy family. I wanted that for
him and Margo both.”

“At least they had that for a short time. Some ­people never get to experience that kind of love and happiness.”

“Tell me about it. I sure didn’t, but seeing Margo with Donald changed my mind about never having a husband or a family.”

“You don’t want to get married someday and have kids?”

“I didn’t, but with Margo so happy, and the way Alex brought so much
joy into their lives, I’d changed my mind. In fact, seeing Alex with them the last few months had been hard for me. It brought up so many feelings I never thought I’d have about being a mother. Now, he’s all mine. I will be the only mother he ever knows.” Kate raked her fingers into her hair, then dropped her hand. “Everything has changed and I feel so guilty that I want it to be this way. I want
to be his mother.”

“You don’t have to feel guilty that Margo died and Alex is yours now.”

“Yes, I do. There’s something you don’t know.”

“What?”

“I am Alex’s biological mother.”

Shocked, Ben tried to process this new revelation. “Are you telling me Donald isn’t Alex’s father?”

“It’s complicated.”

If he was going to push for Alex’s inheritance, he needed to know all
the facts. “Uncomplicate it for me.”

“Due to Margo’s past, she couldn’t carry a biological child of her own.”

That sounded ominous, knowing both Margo and Kate grew up in the system. “Why?”

“Her father molested her as a child. He destroyed her reproductive system before they took Margo away from him for good.”

“Christ,” Ben swore.

“Exactly.”

Another complication popped
into his mind. “Wait. So you and Margo aren’t blood sisters.”

“No. Foster sisters. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t . . . weren’t family.”

He responded to the defensive tone in her words. “Hey, I get it. I had dinner tonight with a group of ­people who are family by blood and friendship. They are closer than any family I’ve ever known. Family goes beyond blood.”

“And you’re a part of
that family.”

“I’ve been avoiding it for the most part, but they keep pulling me in.”

“That’s what a real family does, right? You’re accepted no matter what. You’re included every time you show up. That’s how it should be.”

He’d never thought about it that way, but she was right. “I guess. I like being with them, but it reminds me too much of my messed-­up past. I want what they have,
but don’t feel like I belong.”

“You choose not to belong.”

“Look who’s talking,” he said, pointing out that neither of them had close family, or believed in having one of their own. Funny, they’d both recently come to the point in their lives that they thought it possible for them too. Freaky.

“Margo wanted a child more than anything in this world. More than she wanted the husband
and happy home, she wanted to be a mother. She met Donald and he wanted to give her anything and everything to make her happy.

“Margo came to me just a few months into their relationship and in her crazy, silly way said, ‘Can I use your uterus? I mean, you’re not using it, so I thought you’d let me borrow it.’ Just like that.” Kate wiped the fresh tears from her cheeks.

Ben laughed. “You
two had a really great relationship if you agreed to do that for her.”

“Well, I didn’t exactly go along with it right away. At first I refused, but Margo wore me down. Abuse and neglect punctuated my childhood. Having a child, being a mother, never crossed my mind. In fact, I vehemently stated it would never happen. I believed that.”

“Then you had Alex for her.”

“I wanted her to be
happy and have everything she wanted too. So Donald made a donation, and I was artificially inseminated. I got pregnant immediately. I thought I could carry him, then hand him over to her and Donald and be the aunt. Throughout the pregnancy, she kept asking me if I had second thoughts about giving up my child. I didn’t. I wanted to do this amazing thing for her. I tucked my feelings and thoughts
into a box. I added being pregnant and delivering him to my to-­do list like grocery shopping, paying my bills, and taking my car in for a tune-­up.

“I went into labor and something strange happened. It hit me all at once that he was real. The minute I saw him, this wave of emotion washed through me and for the first time in my life I really felt true and overwhelming love. I didn’t want to
let him go, but I had no choice. I’d promised him to her. Donald was his father. I liked the man, but I didn’t want to raise a child with him. What could I do?

“So I distanced myself from them. Margo figured it out. I visited them and she saw it on my face. I resented her the happiness I saw in all of them. Alex was in her arms and loved her. He accepted her as his mother. She loved him as
her son. I couldn’t take that away from them.”

“But you wanted to. You wanted Alex back.”

“Now I have him. He’s mine. He won’t remember her. He’ll only remember me.” Another wave of tears overtook her. Her shoulders shook.

Ben hugged her close. “You’ll tell him about her. He’ll know that you did something amazing for your sister, and despite the fact you wanted Margo and Donald to
raise him, you always wanted him. When the chance came for you to have him back, you took it. You loved him.