Chapter 4 #4
“I—we—I shouldn’t.” But she does. Her mouth melds with mine, fiery tongues tangling. For a moment I’m lost in her sweetness. In the haze of desire, the feathery strands of her hair sifting through my fingers.
I want her so much I’m insane with it. But somehow I manage to rein myself in and draw back. Looking into her eyes, I take a breath. “I’m going to shower now.”
“Okay.”
“You’re welcome to join me.”
She hesitates. “I want to. You don’t know how badly I want to, but—”
“I think I might have a clue.” Dropping her hand, I release the connection between us. “But I won’t push it. If you’re determined to keep things platonic, I respect that.”
“Right.” She watches me stand up and walk to the bathroom. I’m approaching the door when she speaks again. “Luke?”
“Yeah?” I turn back around, and the need in her eyes takes me out at the knees.
“It’s requiring every ounce of strength in my body not to follow you right now.”
“I understand.”
“But I’m strong. Stronger than most people know.”
Does she really not get that I see that? Does she not see the Hazel I glimpsed in those stories she shared? “You’re one of the strongest women I’ve ever met.”
Her long lashes flutter. “You were raised by a strong single mom. Your sister’s a cop who won the Worldwide Woman of Inspiration award.”
“Exactly.” Drawing a breath, I turn back around and walk into the bathroom.
I leave the door cracked, just in case.
Hazel doesn’t join me in the shower.
It’s probably best, if our goal is platonic co-parenting. Her hormones are wonky, and I won’t take advantage, no matter how badly I want her.
It’s been only a week since she plotted to cut me completely out of her life. I’m still on thin ice, and sleeping together again could shatter that cold, crystal surface for good.
Besides, I’ve got work to do.
It always feels weird, deliberately entering a prison.
The smell is the same when I walk through the door—disinfectant and desperation.
This isn’t the same place where I served my sentence, but I’d know the scent of human confinement with my eyes closed.
I draw deep, soothing breaths as I make my way through the metal detectors, determined to get the job done and get the hell out of here.
I’m sitting in a dented folding chair when the security guard buzzes a man through the visitor area. I stand up to greet him, hugging him tight like a buddy I haven’t seen in six years.
We’ve never met before.
“Great to see you, man,” he says. “How’s Katie and the kids?”
That’s the code phrase my contact gave him in advance, so it’s my turn to deliver my own.
“Doing good. Joe’s getting his tonsils out next week.”
“No kidding? Hope he gets lots of ice cream.” The man takes a seat as the security guard watches me hand him the pre-approved photos I’ve brought. They’re family snapshots, though not any family I’ve met.
Inmate D467 doesn’t know them either, but he picks up a photo of an old guy blowing out candles on a birthday cake. “Did Grandpa get a new couch?”
That’s another coded message, and just what my contact is hoping to hear. “Sheila gave him her old one,” I say carefully. “It’s kinda like that one you had back in Tulsa.”
“I can see that.” He chuckles softly, tilting the photograph sideways. “Mine had blue stripes, not gray ones. The arms are the same, though.”
I say a prayer the wiretap I’m wearing picks up everything. I usually take good mental notes, but plenty of things go over my head. “What ever happened to that fluffy black cat you had when you lived there?”
“Kidney failure.” He shakes his head sadly, another important signal. “She lived to be sixteen years old, though.”
We continue like that for the length of our visit, a carefully constructed conversation of code words and details.
This isn’t the first time I’ve done this, but I don’t take these jobs very often. For my own protection, I’m given virtually no information about my assignment.
Once, when I pressed my contact for details, he threw me a bone. “It’s a program for specialized inmate rehabilitation and redistribution,” Ark Man grumbled.
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“You’re making the world a better place,” he insisted. “The less you know beyond that, the better.”
Behind me, the security guard shuffles his feet. “Time’s about up, gentlemen.” He sounds bored and completely unwary. “Say your goodbyes.”
I lock eyes with Inmate D467. His are warm brown and clear. “Got any questions for me?”
This one’s a little off script, but I’ve learned it’s important to ask.
“Just one,” he says without pause. “Are you happy?”
It catches me completely off guard. For the space of a breath, I’m convinced he’s asking about Hazel. About these fresh, fairy-tale feelings around fatherhood and family.
“I—”
“With your job, I mean. It’s going well? You like your boss and all?”
Ah, got it. He wants to know if he can trust the guys who sent me to talk with him.
“Yeah, it’s great,” I say, meaning it. “Has its challenges, but it feels good to make a difference, you know?”
“Yeah.” With a shrewd nod, he drags a hand over his chin. “Yeah, I get that.”
The guard clears his throat. “Wrap it up, guys.”
Inmate D467 stands, fingers flexing at his sides before relaxing. I get to my feet, sizing him up again. He’s a big guy with calm, gentle eyes and a scar on the bridge of his nose. I wonder if I’ll ever see him again.
Once, on the outside, I ran into someone I met through one of these jobs. If it happens, we’re strictly instructed to pretend we don’t know each other. I followed orders, but he didn’t.
“Thank you,” the ex-inmate murmured when we passed on the street. “You changed my life.”
That moment there is why I keep doing this. Well, that and the money. I don’t need to know details. I don’t need to know who I work for.
But I trust that I’m doing some good in the world.
Inmate D467 and I embrace like old pals, clapping each other on the back. With my mouth near his ear and the guard about five feet away, I decide it’s worth the risk. “Take the deal,” I whisper. “You won’t regret it.”
We draw back again, and the man wears a perfectly bland expression. But I see in his eyes that he’s grateful. He screwed up somehow to get here. What happens next is his choice.
“Good seeing you again,” I say, as the guard starts propelling him back to his cell.
“Take care,” he calls.
“Will do.” I push in my chair and start for the exit. I’m halfway there when raised voices behind me catch my ear. One sounds familiar, and the other—
“Dammit, Hazel. Why are you being like this?”
I freeze in my tracks, turning to face the far corner of the visitor room. Hazel’s wearing her dark hair pinned up on top of her head, and she’s dressed down in jeans and a sweater.
But I’d know the sharp snap of her voice anywhere. The ramrod set of her posture and the curl of her fingers on the table in front of her. “Gee, I don’t know, Dad.” She’s taking no shit from her father. “Maybe because you’re not trusting me to handle things.”
I watch as two guards angle closer, concerned by the fire in their voices. It’s then that I notice these aren’t the same guards from two minutes ago. There must have been a shift change.
Maybe nobody noticed I haven’t left yet.
“It’s way too much pressure on you,” says an unwise Owen Spencer to his hormonal daughter. Not that she isn’t a force to be reckoned with anyway. “Look at you, Hazel. You’re pale with dark circles under your eyes. I don’t like what this job is doing to you.”
Hazel huffs out a breath. “I’m perfectly fine, and I don’t think it’s necessary to—Luke?” She blinks like she’s seeing things as her gaze locks with mine. “You’re here.”
Keep it simple, stupid, I coach myself.
“Visiting,” I manage, clearing my throat. “Mr. Spencer. Good to see you again.”
His forehead crinkles. “You work for me, right?”
Hazel responds before I can. “Luke works for Spencer Development, yes. He’s one of our foremen.”
“Huh.” He stares like he’s trying to place me. “Is my daughter treating you well, son?”
“Very.” I deliberately don’t look at Hazel. “Ms. Spencer is an excellent leader. Very competent and fair.”
Hazel’s cheeks flush as she looks at her dad. “Luke led the build on the old Reynolds place. They wrapped up early and under budget.”
“Nice work, son.” Owen Spencer sizes me up, and I’m not sure he likes what he sees. “I’m assuming you know my daughter works too hard.”
I need to tread carefully here. “Hazel’s a hard worker, sir.” At the edge of my vision, she stiffens. “Everyone at the company works very hard. It’s one of the things I like about being employed by Spencer Development.”
He makes a noise I can’t place as annoyance or pleasure, but Hazel relaxes a little. Something tells me to stay put. To stand my ground until the guards chase me out. If there’s a chance Hazel needs me, I’m here.
“Hard to have a life when you work so hard,” Owen continues. “And you know my Hazel—always so sure she can do everything all by herself.”
That sounds about right. “From what I’ve observed, she can.”
Once more, Hazel puffs up beside me. But Owen’s not seeing this as a point in her favor.
He also seems to realize that he’ll need to try another tack. “No one’s getting any younger here.” With a sigh, he assumes an expression of well-aged wisdom. “Hazel’s well into her thirties now.”
“Dad—”
“What, sweetheart?” He studies his daughter with a fondness that seems genuine. “Are you telling me you don’t want to settle down, have a family?”
She gives him a tight little smile. “You know I want those things.”
“Of course you do. From the time you were little, you played with your dollies and took them wherever you went. To the beach or out on the lake—” He chuckles fondly.
“You even had me buy you that little dolly backpack to put them in so we could walk Grandpa’s tree farm together and Eudora and Bluebell wouldn’t miss anything. ”
I watch as the memory lands softly in Hazel’s lap. Her lips part a little, then press together. “That’s right,” she says softly. “I forgot about Eudora and Bluebell.”
And she gave me shit about Clover?
But now’s not the time to crow about that. I’m sensing she needs me to step in again. “I’m sure Hazel will get there in her own time. Family, career—she’ll find a way to have it all.”
Owen’s gaze swings back to mine, like he’s just now remembered I’m here. “Easy for you to say, son. If she wastes all her time running the company, she’s got another clock winding down.”
She huffs out a breath of frustration. “For crying out loud—I’m a grown adult woman, not a breeding mare. And my biological clock is my business. It doesn’t mean we need to find a way to get you out of prison to swoop in and save the day.”
Her father looks pained, glancing down at his hands on the table. “So you want to see me rotting away in here.”
Hazel’s eyes shimmer. “You know that’s not true.”
“Seems true to me.”
Her jaw tightens. “I believe in paying the price for your actions and choices.”
“And I believe in second chances,” he says.
Lifting his gaze, Owen looks back at me and tries another tack.
“I’m sure you’re aware that my daughter is a consummate professional with impeccable credentials.
Which makes her the perfect character witness to persuade a judge I need to be back at the helm of my company. ”
Say what?
I must look stunned because the old man continues.
“She’s part of the reason I’m here—just a silly misunderstanding, really—so my daughter is key to getting me released.
” He chuckles fondly, but it’s a brittle sound.
“Hazel has a flawless reputation. Never even had a speeding ticket, can you believe it?”
“That’s not true,” she pipes up. “I just had my first one four months ago.”
She’s adorably proud, so I nod. “A regular speed demon.”
“I see.” Owen Spencer levels his gaze at me.
“Be that as it may, any judge would take one look at Hazel in his courtroom and believe every word she says. Here’s this brilliant, upstanding citizen known for honesty and integrity and impeccable morals.
She associates herself with only the best kind of people, and I just think—”
“I’m pregnant, Dad.” Hazel points to my chest and I freeze. “And this guy right here? He’s the father.”
Holy shit.