Her Detective's Secret Intent

She was in her jeans. On top of a bed with a blanket over her. Tad was lying there next to her, watching her.

Turning her head, she saw Ethan, still in his clothes, asleep under the covers of the other bed.

“Guess we didn’t have to worry about shocking him,” Tad said, glancing over at the boy, who was so zonked his mouth hung open and drool trailed from his mouth down to his pillow.

She wanted to say that she was there, in that hotel room, married, for Ethan’s sake. That she was doing it all for him.

“I want a life,” she said softly, looking back at Tad. “I love him so much, I’d give my life for him, but I want a life, too. I want a partner, someone I can talk to when I’m scared or worried or so proud of Ethan I could burst. I want to make love on a regular basis. To not sleep alone. I want to be able to open my heart and love. Really love. Without fear.”

He traced her lips with his finger. Ran his hand along her neck.

“I want all that, too,” he told her. “But only if I can have it with you.”

She could feel a tear drip from her eye down to the pillow. She was crying so much lately, as though all the emotion she’d bottled up for so long couldn’t be contained anymore. There was no room for it.

She’d taken on as much as she could.

Clasping his hand, she brought it to her lips. “I love you.”

“I love you,” he said. “And Ethan, too, in case you hadn’t figured that out yet.”

His love for Ethan wasn’t anything she’d worried about. Strange how she could accept it for her son, but was struggling so hard to allow it for herself.

“I suspect the fear’s become a part of you,” Tad said. “It’s like you said, when you grow up with it...”

She nodded.

“But it’s a part of you that makes you who you are,” he told her. “You’re more aware, more compassionate. You don’t take things for granted.”

She took a deep breath, and then took a huge leap. “You don’t think it makes me crazy?”

He didn’t gush. Or exclaim. Either would have been hard to take.

“Do you think I’m crazy for diving through that door and saving that little girl?” he asked.

“Of course not! You saved her life.”

“I acted, at least in part, because of what had happened to my sister. In the process, I put others’ lives at risk.”

“That’s understandable, Tad. Not crazy.”

“Exactly.”

* * *

“We should probably wake him up and get going.” As much as Tad wanted to lie in bed talking with Miranda, his wife, he couldn’t do that easily until he knew they were settled. That Brian O’Connor was either on a plane or in jail. Miranda could request a restraining order against the man, that would probably be granted on a temporary basis, until she could get proof that her father had obtained papers to have her evaluated without her actually having been examined in the last ten years. At that point she’d probably be granted a full restraining order. For a period of time.

She couldn’t prove prior abuse, but she could testify about it to a judge for a restraining order.

He’d talked to her about it the night before, and it was already on their agenda for that day.

They had breakfast at a diner up the road and then Ethan was settled in the back. He’d chosen the third seat this time, and he was watching another movie as they headed back across the desert.

“I was thinking... I’d like to go into private detective work,” he told Miranda as they drove, and it occurred to him that if their marriage was real, he wasn’t alone anymore. He should include her in life-changing decisions. “Not regular PI work, that’s not me, but working domestic violence cases, you know, for the High Risk Team. Maybe hire myself out to police departments. The Lemonade Stand. Individuals. As long as I’m licensed in the state, I could do any of it.”

The plan was fluid. But he was liking it so far.

“I think it’s a great idea,” Miranda told him. And then asked, “Would you want to move? Into a different place, I mean?”