Eric rolled around on a small quilt while Dog lay just out of reach. Mary had adopted the dog when she found it begging by the back door. Since then it had found its way into the home permanently. At six months old, Eric was the biggest heartbreaker around. Eric rolled to his tummy and squealed. The dog’s tail thumped from side to side, stopping now and then near Eric’s chubby fingers.
Mary rocked with pen and paper in hand.
Eric squealed as he nabbed thin air and rolled over with a huge thump.
Mary’s fingers twitched, making two distinct movements. Eric spotted the movement and squealed with delight. Mary caught Selena standing in the doorway and gave a curt nod.
Selena returned the nod, but not the curtness. She’d seen the love in Mary’s eyes when no one was looking. She wouldn’t push the take-over of Eric.
Mary waved her over.
Selena gently walked over, not wanting to startle Eric since he didn’t know her well. She didn’t see the toy on the floor until her foot flattened it with a squeak. Dog’s head jerked towards the sound and then bolted from the room. Eric didn’t respond until his favorite toy of the moment disappeared and then he yelled at the top of his lungs.
Something wasn’t right with Eric. If Dog heard, shouldn’t he?
Mary shook her head and smiled. She knelt down and crooned an off-key song in his ear and smiled with sadness as Selena stared in bewilderment between the baby and the dog. Mary glanced quickly over at the entry way into the hall and back. Placing a finger to her lips, she made the gesture for quiet. Her eyebrows up, she took both hands, using index fingers only, rolled them over and towards her chest.
Selena didn’t understand. Mary grabbed her paper and pen and scrawled a few words.
“Do you sign? ASL?”
She looked at Mary, then Eric, and back again. Eric and Mary were deaf. The only thing she knew how to sign was “thank you.” Her fingerspelling wasn’t bad if she concentrated.
She fingerspelled, “Fingerspelling only.”
Mary smiled and fingerspelled, “Deaf.”
Why the secrecy?
As if Mary had read her mind, she fingerspelled, “Andrew wants perfect baby.”
It took Selena three times to soak in the letters. She fingerspelled back to her, “Andrew wants a perfect baby?”
Mary nodded once. She fingerspelled, “Eric deaf secret. I can read lips.”
“Because of his father?” Selena mouthed, hoping she wasn’t over-enunciating the words. She’d heard if one spoke too slowly, it was more difficult for a person who is deaf to understand. “What would happen if he found out?”
Mary took her index finger across her throat.
Damn. Selena not only had to find out who had ordered the hit, but now she had to make sure no one found out about her nephew’s deafness.
Double damn.
Eric’s gaze alerted both women. Both women sighed with relief in silence when they saw Dog.
Dog padded between the two women as if they didn’t exist, plopped down a foot away, his tail went back to an old game between dog and babies. A game both Dog and baby were happy with. The dog was as loyal as they came for pooches. No one called it anything but Dog. Andrew had said, “A dog’s a dog. No name. No tombstone. No engraving needed.”
Mary pointed to Dog, slapped her thigh and then snapped her fingers. She pointed to Dog, repeated the movements and gestured for Selena to try. Selena signed dog. Mary shook her head, placed her index on her lips and gestured for her to make the sign smaller.
Several signs later and two diaper changes, the women had found a truce.
• • •
No one saw Andrew as he watched the two women take on the scene in the middle of the room. Andrew had been kicked in the stomach when he’d laid eyes on her. She wasn’t extraordinary in looks, but there was a strength that had shone through her warrior eyes as she’d raced across the square. There had been purpose in her stride yesterday. The intent loud and clear in looks as well as in her hips.
He’d known she hadn’t been the one his contact had sent for the interview, but he’d played the cards he’d been dealt. His dearly departed wife owed him. There was more than one way to collect on a debt.
He wanted Selena more than he’d ever wanted anyone. More than he’d wanted Theresa. Theresa had been more waif-like. More in need of protecting. He’d liked that. At first. Then as time wore on, it started getting on his nerves. Her constant whining about everything from his brother’s intimidating her in the middle of the night to his father’s temper tantrums. His father had protected her far longer than he’d expected him to and in a way that had surprised him. When Theresa had brought Eric into the world, he thought he could love her the way a man loves a woman, but she wanted to be first.
His world came first. He came first.
Theresa hadn’t been able to accept the ranking order of his life.
Then Eric became her number one priority when it should’ve been him. Even his father doted over Eric.
If his father only knew what was about to come crashing down around his precious empire.
All his life he’d catered to his father’s every whim. All of them had. Even his mother, whom he’d loved with all his heart until she’d died. He had placed her on a pedestal, putting her higher and higher when she’d taken the beatings and constant berating from his father without a sound. The day his father told him she’d taken a lover his heart understood she’d needed love. Real love.
He held a loyalty to his father higher than the pedestal he’d placed his mother. He’d watched his mother die slowly, whispering, “My sweet Andrew. I understand, darling. Your mama will always love you.” He’d cried for the mother he’d lost. Even at a young age, he’d known it was the reason his father had gained a higher respect for him.
He winced as a cough plunged through the ear piece and into his eardrum.
“Sorry,” the voice apologized. “Damn things are too sensitive. I have the report on Selena Malone. You’re not going to like the findings,” the man on the other end warned. He updated Andrew on what they’d found.
Andrew merely smiled. At least she wouldn’t be a complete loss. Someone would be willing to take her off his hands. Killing two birds with one stone provided the best outcome yet.
• • •
Selena stood over the crib and smoothed the lambs on the soft blanket with her fingertips. Eric had finally fallen asleep, completely innocent of his surroundings.
It had been two weeks since Selena had been paid a nighttime visit by two men. The one she could do without. The other one … well … as much as she had wanted to continue with the dream, reality had set in, causing her to wonder if the responses Drake elicited from her were traveling as hot and wicked through his veins. At first she’d caught a glimpse of desire in those dark eyes, and something else. Hurt. Then it was as if he’d sensed the intrusion and shut the emotions down, leaving anger.
The Brahms’ Lullaby came to a halt on the CD player attached to the crib’s side. She pressed the play and repeat buttons, wondering how much of the lullaby’s vibrations Eric would feel. Soon the soothing melody caressed the room, more for a prop in maintaining Eric was a hearing baby. Although she didn’t regret coming back to this life for her nephew, she did grieve, deeply, for what should’ve been. A sister’s affection. A mother for her nephew.
Being in Drake’s arms.
A shuffling sound from the hallway alerted Selena. She went to the other side of the crib and tucked the covers over Eric’s feet.
No one. She glanced down inside the crib one last time. A sound came, so soft it took all her concentration to hear it again. Who was crying?
She hated leaving Eric’s side, but the curiosity in her was too hard to ignore. She caressed Eric’s cheek. Placing a kiss on her fingertip, she touched his brow. On her way out, she checked the monitor, and then turned the tiny, embroidered pillow hanging from the doorknob to shhhh.
Her bare feet guided her down the hall. She stopped at the room next to hers. The crying was faint as she pressed her ear to the door.
“The room’s empty.”
Andrew’s words glided over Selena suspiciously as she faced him.
“I heard someone crying,” she answered. Andrew obviously didn’t believe her. “I could hear it from Eric’s room and tried to follow the sound. It was a woman. I wanted to see if I could help.” The smile disappeared at his hard cold stare.
“Your only charge is Eric. Don’t worry what goes on behind the other doors.”
“I won’t stand aside while someone is in distress.”
“You will if you value your life,” Andrew returned.
The door to her room slammed shut.
She jumped.
Andrew turned away. “Close your window.”
“I never opened it.” He froze for a second and shook his head as if more to himself than to her words before continuing. “Meet me downstairs in an hour. I’m leaving for a small business trip and would like to see you before I leave.”
“Why?” But he’d already taken the corner and had disappeared.
She opened her door and sighed.
On her bed lay her cell phone.
Who had placed it here?
• • •
Dear Journal,
Don was sitting outside my balcony when I came back to my room. Scared the living daylights out of me with the lights out. Spoke as if he were in another world about a woman crying and babies. He finally popped out of his trance and asked me, point blank, when I was going to have a baby. I couldn’t do anything but stare. If he only knew how little time he gave Andrew and me to accomplish that feat. So here I am … wanting to tell him it’s none of his business, when he tells me his wife used to sleep in this room with Andrew sleeping next door in the small room off of this one. Then the craziest words came out of the old coot’s mouth. I could barely hear him as he whispered, “I wish I coulda kept you alive.” Weird doesn’t begin to describe what went through my insides.
Big sister, if you ever get married, check into the in-laws, because you never know when you might become the next out-law.
Selena went onto the balcony and stared into the night. She knew she would’ve laughed if she wasn’t here, if her sister wasn’t dead, or her nephew wasn’t on a hit list, being raised by a murderer. Instead she sank to the floor. The flow of tears came unchecked. She couldn’t move. The sadness came in huge waves, one after the other, unrelenting. No sound came from her lips.
A soft, warm breeze suddenly appeared, brushing over her back and hair. The chimes on the balcony teased its player. She closed her eyes, welcoming the soothing touch.
“I can get you out of this.”
She wasn’t surprised at the sound of his voice or that she hadn’t heard him enter. It had always been like that.
“Hello, Drake,” she whispered. “You know, I never thought I’d see you again.”
He cupped the side of her face and gently wiped the tears with his thumb.
She leaned her head into his touch.
“Is there something you’d like to tell me?” he asked, stilling his caressing.
She knew what he was asking. “What’s there to tell?”
“Selena … Open your eyes,” he commanded softly.
She shook her head.
“Drake, it isn’t safe for you to be in this room. Andrew could come back at any time.”
The corner of his mouth lifted to a snarl and a low growl erupted from his throat.
She ignored it. “It’s not what you think.”
“What then?” he demanded.
“I can’t explain.”
“You mean won’t.” He rocked back on the heel of his boots.
The warmth he’d provided moments before vanished. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want this to happen,” she whispered.
He clenched his hands. “We’re married. I honored my part. I thought you hated deception of any kind.”
A knock on the door brought her to her feet and sent him swiftly to the side of the door as it opened.
Mary peeked in and signed, “Goodnight.” The door closed.
Drake put his gun back in its place. “You understood that?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Well?” He glared across the room.
“Well what?” She smiled as he walked with long strides, remembering another time when he was determined.
“Honey, don’t try my patience. Who was that and what did she say?”
“Goodnight.”
“Not until you’ve answered my question.”
“Goodnight.”
He reached out, hooked her with his arm and brought her close. Old habits were hard to break it seemed. “I’ll ask one more time time … ”
“You won’t have to. Don’t be so suspicious of everything,” she told him. “Mary is Andrew’s housekeeper and she’s deaf. She signed goodnight.”
He bent his head and breathed deeply as his nose trailed the side of her neck.
“One day you will push me too far, Selena.”
He let go of her and strode to the balcony. “I will get the answers I want sooner or later. I just prefer sooner. Though later will work just as well.” His eyes took in the top of her hair to the tip of her toes.
“Why are you looking at me in that way?”
“No reason, honey. Just wanted to get one more look at a woman who’s traded the living for a dead man.”
“It’s not like that.” She started for him.
In a flash he jumped over the side of the balcony.
“Damn you,” she whispered into the wind, looking into the black night.