Shielded In The Shadows

“What if Suzie’s been lying to you all along?”

Emma sat straight up in bed. “She’s the victim here, Jayden, and now you’re trying to make her out to be a liar? We’ve seen the X-rays, read the expert testimony, in addition to her own. The case is about who hit her, remember?”

Stepping into the shorts and T-shirt she’d put on first thing in the morning, she headed for the door.

He hadn’t meant, in any way, to say that Suzie wasn’t the victim. Only that she wasn’t being straight with them about the circumstances of her abuse. Because she was scared to death, probably. He wasn’t so much faulting her as he was trying to get to the whole truth so they could make the right arrest and protect not only Suzie but Emma, too.

He didn’t get up and go tell her so. He got up, grabbed a blanket and pillow off the spare bed and went out to the couch instead.

She was pissed at him.

Maybe that was for the best.

Chapter 21

It only took Emma a couple of minutes, and a cooler mind, to calm down.

Shaking her head, she leaned against the kitchen counter, arms crossed over her middle, and listened as Jayden moved out to the couch. She didn’t blame him. She was letting emotion get in the way of work.

He’d made the absolute right choice to go hard after Bill, to use whatever information he had to find some proof that would allow them to put Bill’s sorry ass in jail. He did what she’d have done. What she’d have wanted him to do.

He hadn’t told her because he hadn’t wanted her to know he’d stepped out of line?

She straightened. Wait a minute.

So...she’d been letting emotions, personal emotions, cloud her judgment when she’d been hurt that he hadn’t told her what he’d done.

But he’d not told her...for the exact same reason! He’d been letting personal emotions cloud his judgment.

They both were developing feelings and letting those emotions interfere!

She stood there alone, absorbing her discovery. What in hell did they do now?

They had to at least talk about it. That much was clear.

To discuss options. Probabilities.

Whether or not there were any possibilities for their fling to turn into something else.

It was way too soon to tell anything for sure, of course. But should they at least discuss opening some doors? As long as they were both putting everything on the table, keeping their eyes wide open?

Was there a way to have a long-term situation?

Or possibly even a family, down the road, without the marriage? Or even living together?

Maybe she could still inseminate as planned, raise her child, and he’d be like an “uncle” who visited often. Cou

ld she do that?

Or was that more of the “too wild” thinking that got her into trouble?

Was it possible—could she even open the door to the possibility—that she’d been rash in her decision to never have another long-term partnership?

Or was Ms. Shadow in control? Messing with her head. Trying to convince her she could have all these things. Just like Ms. Shadow had led her to the back of Keith’s bike all those years ago.

The only answer she had at the moment was that she couldn’t leave Jayden lying on the couch. Couldn’t leave them both hanging there with her stomping out leading to awkwardness in the morning. It was exactly the kind of thing they were trying to avoid.

She owed him an apology.