Full Contact (8 page)

“I have Josh. Most of the time.”

“A young child is no protection.”

“I have a gun. Took self-defense. Carry pepper spray. You know that.”

“And I know that you are a woman and a man's a man and one is genetically stronger than the other.”

She hated when he talked this way. But she knew that if he was ever going to accept the world, ever rejoin society, he had to see that not every woman was in imminent danger of attack.

“There are ways to take someone down regardless
of physical strength.” She knew them, and would use them if she had to.

“And when you're in bed at night, asleep, what then? What if you're taken by surprise before you have a chance to think of your techniques? You need a man in your house, protecting you.”

“I want to marry and have a partner and…maybe even more children,” Ellen said quietly. “But I do not need a man for protection.”

“You need this therapy.”

“I think so, too.”

“You've told me about it. Now I'll worry. Keep me informed. Okay?”

“Yeah. And Joe?”

“What?”

“Thank you.”

“Next time the sheriff's up this way I'm telling him about what you're doing with this guy.”

She'd figured he would. And was glad for the protection. Even if she didn't need it.

J
AY RECOGNIZED THE NUMBER
on his phone Monday evening and answered immediately.

“Yeah.”

“Jay, I haven't heard from you,” Kelsey said.

He hadn't heard from her once in the twelve years his son had been alive—not even a birth announcement—and now all of a sudden there was a rush? “I know.”

“You're not running out on us, Jay. Not again.”

“I didn't run out on anyone before,” he reminded her. He'd been the one left in the cold. Not one of the families who had opened their homes to him had had any qualms about letting him take the fall for them.

“You know what I mean.”

No, he really didn't.

“You turned traitor. You're the one who made the call that sent you to prison. You did it to yourself and had no right taking everyone else down with you.”

Yes, because saving a drugged girl from life-altering devastation was not the right thing to do.

“Was there a point to this call, Kelsey? I'm in Arizona. I told you I would be in touch soon and I will be.”

“Cole cut school twice last week. He's back on pot. I'm certain of it.”

Maybe if they didn't give the kid enough money to
buy the stuff, or maybe monitored his friends a little better, they wouldn't have this problem. But what did he know? He had no skills with this parenting thing.

“You said he was being tested regularly.”

“He is.”

“And?”

“The last two tests were clean, but after each test he's had this smirk on his face—the one that tells me he's up to something. I think he's found a way to manipulate his drug tests.”

“You sure you aren't paranoid because you know what you got away with when you were growing up?” Jay couldn't resist the taunt. It helped take away the sting of concern for the son he'd never met. Despite all they'd done, Kelsey and her crowd had all turned out all right.

“I'm sure, Jay. None of us ever ended up in jail.”

No, but not because they hadn't committed the crimes that would have put them there.

“You have to do something. Cole's out of control and we can't handle him anymore.”

“I have some things to clear up,” he said. “I told you I'd be in touch and I will be.”

“When?”

“Soon.”

“
Soon
is not good enough.”

He wasn't sure he was going to be good enough, either. Hell, the last thing a troubled kid needed was a guy who had no clue what to do with him. If Cole was already riding on the edge, he couldn't afford a parental screwup. He couldn't afford to trust—or need—a guy who wasn't capable of being around for the long haul.
A guy who made a habit of moving rather than dealing with women who wanted more from him than sex.

Jay could tell Kelsey that. He could say no. Tell her to find someone else to help her kid.

If he were some other guy, maybe he could. But whether he was father material or not, Cole was his son.

“Soon is going to have to be good enough,” he finally said. “It's all I've got.”

 

J
AY TOOK
E
LLEN OUT AGAIN
on Tuesday. During the early-morning hours at her request. Early morning was good for him. He had things to think about as he rode. He focused on upcoming appointments, clients at Big Spirits and, when that wasn't enough to distract him from an awareness of the female body behind him, he thought about his father. He'd been searching for a week—perusing every document he could find—and he was no closer to locating the bastard than he'd been before he started looking.

If he didn't turn up some clue soon, he was going to have to ask Sheriff Richards for help. Though Jay hated to ask anyone in this town for anything, he needed more official resources and his access to them was in Miami.

He thought about his son, too—about the most recent call from Kelsey. Jay knew nothing about kids, living with them or raising them. He had no idea what she thought he could do to help.

Leaning to the left, he rounded a corner, comfortable with the powerful machine between his legs. He and the bike were one. Part of one body.

And thinking of bodies…

Ellen's hands were on his shoulders. Their third time out and her touch was still tentative.

She was enjoying the motorcycle, and, he hoped, learning to trust him so that they could move to the next stage of therapy—light massage. On top of her clothes.

“Can we stop a second, I'm getting a call.” Ellen's voice came through the buds in his ears.

Pulling over to the side of the road, Jay guided the bike with his feet until they were far enough onto the shoulder to be safe.

Ellen shifted behind him. “It was my mother.”

He couldn't miss the displeasure in her voice.

“I have to call her.”

Jay pulled the buds out of his ears when they crackled with Ellen's movement as she removed her head gear. She got off the bike and he turned to watch her.

She pushed one button and paced while she held the smartphone to her ear.

“Mom?”

That was it, nothing else for what seemed an inordinately long time. He tried not to listen when Ellen eventually spoke.

“Yes, Beth was right. I'm riding on his motorcycle.”

Beth?
As in the sheriff's wife? Jay wiped at the chrome on his handlebars with his thumb.

“It's not like that, Mom.”

Another silence.

“Mom, don't do this to me.” Her voice was firm. “Yes.”

More silence.

“Because I didn't want you to do exactly what you're doing. I made a decision. An educated decision.”

Ellen paced in front of the bike. Then around it. She didn't look at Jay, but she didn't stray far, either.

“I know. But you have to trust my judgment. I'm a grown woman.”

He'd had a lot of attractive clients. He'd never had trouble maintaining the walls between the therapist and the man. What was it about this woman that raised these uncomfortable feelings?

“Not anymore, I'm not. Besides, it's therapy. He's reporting to Shawna.”

She was so damned beautiful and seemed completely unaware of that fact. Which had to worry her mother.

Beautiful women didn't usually get their hooks into him. So why did this one seem to be doing so?

Was it the town? The loving environment that was so foreign to him? Was it the knowledge of Cole? The possibility of a family on the horizon?

“I have to go. I had Jay pull over when my phone rang. I didn't want you to worry.”

He tinkered with the key in the ignition, the back of his neck burning as her voice grew closer behind him.

“I know. But you undermine me when you don't trust me.”

Ellen had her head on straight. Jay had already figured that out.

“I know,” she said. “I love you, too.”

He heard the phone click closed seconds before the bike took her weight. Securing his earbuds, Jay didn't turn around as Ellen fidgeted then said, “I'm ready.”

“Everything okay?” he asked as he rolled the bike toward the road, checking for oncoming traffic. “Yeah.”

He didn't pursue the subject further. He had to trust that she knew the situation well enough to know.

 

“S
O WHAT IS IT THAT
you have to tell me?” Ellen stood in her mother's kitchen that afternoon, after work. She was still holding on to the joy of her day, reluctant to discuss anything that would crush it.

The residents at the center had been in particularly high spirits as they'd played bingo for brownies. And Hugh had joined them. For the first time since he'd moved in.

He'd won a brownie.

And, at one point, had laughed out loud.

“You want some juice?” Martha pulled a jar of pineapple juice from the refrigerator. A component of the diet she'd been on since shortly after Ellen's father left.

“No, thanks.”

Wearing jean shorts and a T-shirt, Martha had come from the production room at Montford where she was now production manager of the university television station. Her mother had lost weight over the past seven years and looked as good as any of the students she helped.

“Hard to believe Josh has been gone only eight days.”

“I know.”

“Have you talked to him today?”

“Yeah, this morning. They were leaving for a trip to Boulder—going to a ski resort.”

“What's a five-year-old boy going to do in a ski resort in the middle of summer?”

“I intended to ask Aaron that question, but Josh said Daddy and Jaime were in the bathroom getting ready. He was playing a video game.”

“It better not be any of those violent things. You don't think Aaron would let him do that, do you?”

“Aaron is as determined as we are to see that Josh grows up without violence,” she said. “He was playing some racing game with one of the educational characters he and I watch together.”

Ellen didn't have nearly as much faith in her ex-husband as she once had, but there were some things that didn't change. She hoped.

“Still, I'll feel better when we have him back,” Martha said, leaning against the counter.

The way her mother was looking at her, with the worried frown that she was trying to force into a smile, put Ellen off her mark. She knew the look from those hellish months following the attack. If not for Martha's watchful care, Ellen might not have made it through.

Her mother and David had saved her life. They loved her more than anyone possibly could.

“Tell me what you found out about Jay,” Ellen said.

Martha had tried to tell her this morning during the ride, but Ellen had cut her off. She couldn't be in the man's company while listening to gossip about him.

She would rather not listen to it at all.

“He has a ponytail for heaven's sake, El. What kind of man wears a ponytail? Except one who's thwarting convention? One who wants people to know that he won't conform?”

“It's a ponytail, Mom. Maybe he's an artistic sort. Or has an aversion to scissors near his head. This isn't like you to be so petty.”

“It's not just the ponytail.”

“I didn't think so.”

“I shouldn't be saying anything.” Martha's voice had the tone the heroines used when about to say something negative about someone. Ellen's stomach knotted. The
ladies meant well. The information they passed on was always true. And they passed it on only when they were attempting to help or protect someone they cared about.

Still…

“Greg talked to him, as you know.”

Yeah, and he'd found out that Jay was a therapeutic massage therapist as he'd claimed. One with national certification by the medical board, and with a host of past clients who sang his praises.

“He has no intention of sticking around, Ellen. He told Greg that point-blank. Which means that if you get involved with him, you're going to get hurt.”

“I'm not getting involved with him and have no intention of doing so.”

“He's shunned every one of our attempts to get to know him better, every invitation. It's like he's hiding.”

“He's a loner, Mom. It doesn't mean anything.”

“Greg mentioned something to Beth the other day that she should never have repeated. But when she saw you on that man's motorcycle, she thought she had to warn me so I could make certain that you don't get hurt.”

Ellen took a deep breath. “Mom, you can't protect me from ever being hurt again. Pain is a part of life. You—and all of the others—have to let me live or I might as well have not survived—”

“Don't.” Martha held up a hand. “Don't ever say that.”

Tightening her lips around her response, Ellen nodded.

“You're right,” Martha said.

Ellen sank into a chair at the table that predated her. She could remember spilling her milk one night when
her parents had invited Will and Becca over for dinner. The milk had seeped into the crack between the leaves and splashed on everyone's feet.

“We do have to let you live. My friends and I, the sheriff, David—we are overprotective. I know that. I see us doing it and every time I promise myself we'll stop. But we don't.”

Martha reached over and ran her hand through Ellen's hair, separating the strands with her fingers as she'd done so many times over the years. When Ellen had the flu and the chicken pox. The time she'd lost her bid for class president in high school.

When she had confessed she was divorcing Aaron.

“You're a remarkable young woman, Ellen. Sweet and kind and nurturing, and you didn't deserve—” Martha met Ellen's gaze. “I'm a mom. My job is to protect. And you…you've always been the child who I could most relate to. The one I most understand. When you got…hurt…”

“I know, Mom,” Ellen said, feeling tears build. She wasn't going to cry. But she couldn't back down, either. “I'm a mom, too. I get it.” She paused. “But I can't allow it. I have to make my own decisions or I'll become more and more dependent. More and more powerless.”

“He's a private investigator, Ellen,” Martha said. “He works on cold cases—disappearances and murders. He's looking for something here in Shelter Valley. And he has a way of getting information that no one else can find. He has underhanded methods. Uses people and…”

Martha continued, giving details of cases as Beth had repeated them to her. Ellen listened, but she was thinking about something Hugh had said. She'd asked him how things were going with his therapist. It was
outside the bounds of her job—regardless of whether she knew the therapist or not.

“He wanted my help. First time anyone has needed me for any damned thing since I got old, and I couldn't help him,” Hugh had said.

“Wanted your help?” Ellen had asked, sliding a marker on the B-14 square on Hugh's bingo card.