Chapter Fourteen
Addie was floating between waking up and a wonderful dream. Floating and experiencing a nice buzz from having sex with Judson.
Of course, this hadn’t been their first time together. That first time had been awkward, fumbling, but still amazing. This latest one hit the amazing mark and then some without the other stuff.
Her body was practically still humming, and while part of her wanted to hang on to the dream, she decided to hang on to the man instead. She was hoping he not only had a second condom but that they could get in another round of sex before the babies woke.
She turned in the bed, her hand hoping to land on a still-naked Judson. But it didn’t. And when she felt around the mattress and realized he wasn’t there, her eyes flew open. Oh, God. Had something happened?
Since the only illumination was coming from a night-light clear across the room, it took her a couple of frantic moments to spot him.
He was fully dressed in his jeans, boots and shirt and was sitting in the rocking chair feeding Rose from one of the premade formula bottles they’d stored in the room.
“I didn’t hear her wake up,” Addie blurted, throwing back the covers and getting out of bed. Good grief. She must have slept hard not to hear the babies. She usually woke if one of them stirred even a little.
Judson smiled at her and gave her a long, lingering look with his gaze sliding over her body.
That’s when she realized she was bare naked.
Considering the amazing sex they’d recently had, that shouldn’t have alarmed her, but it didn’t seem right to be in her birthday suit with one of the babies awake.
Addie snatched her clothes up off the floor.
“Why didn’t I hear you, or Rose, get up?” she muttered.
“Because you were getting some much-needed sleep,” Judson was quick to say.
“And besides, Rose didn’t actually make much of a sound.
I’m a light sleeper, and when I heard her moving around, I slipped out of bed, changed her diaper and got her a bottle.
I’ve seen you feed the twins often enough that I know how to do it. ”
He did indeed know how, holding the tiny bottle at the correct angle, and Rose seemed perfectly content being in Judson’s arms.
Addie glanced at the clock and was surprised to see that it was already after midnight.
She had figured both babies would wake up sooner than this, since it was rare for them to go longer than four hours.
Apparently, they’d needed their sleep as much as Addie had.
That sleep for Lily was soon coming to an end, though, since the little girl was already beginning to wiggle.
Rather than wait until Lily broke into a cry, which she would almost certainly do any second now, Addie picked her up and kissed her.
She took a few extra moments just holding her before she changed Lily’s diaper and took out another bottle of formula.
The timing was perfect, since Rose had just finished her feeding, and Judson stood to do the burping and uptime against his shoulder with the baby while Addie settled in the rocker with Lily.
This seemed odd. But normal, too. And she tried not to allow herself to slip into a fantasy of this being their usual routine. There were way too many unknowns for that, so she pushed this warm, fuzzy feeling aside.
“Did I miss anything else while I was asleep?” she asked. Though she figured if he had good news, he would have already told her.
“I’ve gotten a few texts,” he admitted while he gently patted Rose’s back. “I had to specifically ask Grace to send them to me, though. She was trying to give me some time to rest, but I wanted to be kept in the loop.”
“So do I,” she let him know. “I’m guessing from the way your jaw muscles are stirring that we still don’t know who shot and killed Yvette.”
“We don’t,” he verified.
Which meant the killer was still at large. And they weren’t safe.
“You said that you just needed this danger to end,” he reminded her. “But it might not happen any time soon. We might have to stick with these arrangements for a while.”
Part of that suited her. The part with Judson being here with her and the twins. But Addie knew she couldn’t live like this. If they didn’t identify the killer soon and make an arrest, then she might have to ask Judson and Grace about setting up some kind of lure or trap to catch them.
“I saw a note on your nightstand,” he went on a moment later. “It’s a reminder for you to return a call to your adoption attorney.”
Addie nodded. Then she sighed. “Yes, she tried to contact me yesterday when I was waiting to give my statement about Yvette’s murder, but I let the call go to voicemail.
I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to talk to her,” she settled for saying.
“I listened to the voicemail, and it, uh, wasn’t good. ”
Judson stopped walking and stared at her. “What do you mean?”
She gathered her breath and snuggled Lily just a little closer.
“The lawyer wants me to hold off on the adoption petition until after the killer is caught and I can guarantee that the babies are safe. Added to that, she believes I should include a statement in my petition outlining future safety measure I’ll take to make sure there’s no repeat of what happened. ”
He continued to stare at her. “Will the abduction affect your application for adoption?”
Addie wanted to say no but couldn’t. “Maybe,” she admitted and then went with the truth.
“Probably.” She had to take a moment to tamp down the churning in her stomach over the possibility of not being able to become a mother to these babies.
“There’s no doubt others want them, and the adoption agency might consider them to be better parents than I can be. ”
“No one would be better than you,” Judson was quick to assure her.
He believed that. And she hoped it was true. But Addie couldn’t forget that they’d had sex just hours earlier and that might be playing into his assessment of her. Heck, their entire past together certainly colored his thoughts.
“The powers that be might not see it that way,” she muttered.
Judson started walking again and stopped right in front of where she was sitting. “I’ll marry you if you think that’ll help your petition.”
Addie’s mouth dropped open, and while she was stunned, she was pretty sure that Judson was, too. She was betting he hadn’t given that a lot of thought before he’d thrown it out there like that.
“Marry,” she repeated, and because she didn’t know what else to say, she repeated it a couple more times.
“That proposal isn’t about the sex,” he spelled out before she could manage to say just that. “It’s about Lily and Rose. And, I mean, it’s not as if we don’t know each other.”
“So, it is partly about the sex,” she said.
He looked ready to shrug and then seemed to remember he had a baby on his shoulder. A burping one. The sounds added a bit of lightness to the serious tone that’d settled over the room.
“All right,” Judson conceded. “The sex plays into it. Things are…good between us in that department.”
They were better than good. However, she could practically hear the but to follow that. Good sex was a start, but it shouldn’t be the foundation for a marriage, one that included a ready-made family with preemie twins who were going to need a lot of care, love and attention.
“I appreciate that,” she told him. And she voiced that but.
“It’s a bad time for either of us to be making big decisions about our future.
” Then she spelled out another issue. “And I don’t want to tie you into a relationship for the sake of the babies.
It’s honorable, yes. Very honorable,” she amended.
“But if you’re honest with yourself, you’ll see it isn’t what you really want. ”
She frowned and felt the stir of fresh emotions. Disappointment was leading the pack, followed closely by the dread that she’d just shut down something she shouldn’t have.
Something she wanted.
She did want Judson. Addie wanted him, marriage. Heck, a bright, rosy future together with their twin girls. But this wasn’t a fantasy she could force or lure Judson into. If he truly proposed, she wanted it to be for the right reasons.
For love.
Judson opened his mouth to speak, and Addie held her breath. Then she heard the silent profanity in her head when his phone vibrated doing its little dance across the desk.
Talk about lousy timing, but when he walked to the desk, looked at the screen and muttered, “It’s Grace,” Addie knew the phone call could be more important than the personal stuff going on between them.
Because until this investigation was over and the killer was caught, any and all personal plans had to be on hold.
Judson eased Rose into her bassinet and took the call. Thankfully, he didn’t step out of the room so she wouldn’t be able to hear, but instead he moved closer to her and put the call on speaker.
“Addie’s here with me and listening in,” Judson let his boss know right off the bat.
Grace sighed. “I was hoping she’d be asleep.”
“I slept some,” Addie piped in.
“Good. We’ll all need a long sleep once this ordeal is over,” Grace replied. “And we might be closing in on that. Finally.” Addie was ready to cheer or at least blow out a breath of relief, but then Grace added, “There might have been another murder, though.”
Judson bit off the profanity that he started. “Who?”
“Possibly Trevor,” Grace was quick to let them know. “After he didn’t show for the GSR test, I had two reserve deputies go to the hotel where he was supposed to have been staying. When they arrived, the door was ajar so they entered, and they saw blood on the floor. But no sign of Trevor.”
Addie had to stop herself from cursing, too. She wasn’t a fan of Trevor, but if he’d been murdered, that meant the killer wasn’t stopping.
But why?