Abiding Love (18 page)

Still pondering how Xandra had gotten in without the code and how the gates had gotten locked behind her, Adam knelt down next to her ex-husband. In a quiet but deadly voice that Xandra couldn’t hear he said, “Here’s how this is going to go. You’re going to jail. Throw up any defense you want in court, but let’s get this straight right now—you’re safer in prison than you will be anywhere I can find you.”

Adam grabbed him by the shirt and turned him so he could stick his face inches from Balfour’s. “And in case you don’t know, I’ve been trained to slip into a hostile country, take out a target and get back out with no one but the victim knowing I was there. Your tax dollars at work. So you see, coming after you will be child’s play.”

His hand still holding Balfour by the shirt, Adam yanked him to a sitting position and then to his feet, so he could get him handed over to the cops and away from Xandra. But Adam wasn’t finished replacing bravado with fear in the small man’s heart and mind. “Oh, and if, by some miracle, you beat the rap for this, don’t forget to look over your shoulder from the minute you step out of the police station, because you’ll never know when I’m going to show up.”

A car zoomed up the driveway and Adam recognized the distinctive sound of the old V-8 engine in Jim Lovell’s Mustang, so he dragged his chastened prisoner across the foyer. When Balfour turned his head to look at Xandra, Adam jerked him around and snapped, “Don’t you dare even look at her.”

Once out on the steps, with Lovell approaching, Adam continued with his empty threats. “We still have one more thing to talk about. If you do go to prison, and you probably will, I might get involved in living my happy life with that woman you tried to destroy, and I might forget all about you. If you’re real lucky. But if I suddenly have a reason to remember you, like I hear your name when you’re released sometime down the line, or you try to write her, or you hurt her or my son in any way, know that your days will be numbered in the single digits. Got it?”

The man had lost all color by then. He stammered, “Y-yes. Yes. I’ll forget she ever existed. She’s not worth it.”

Adam narrowed his eyes. “That’s where you’re wrong. She’s worth a hundred of you. And her con
tinued health and happiness are worth your life, buddy boy, and don’t you forget it.”

“So is this our letter writer?” Jim Lovell asked as he walked to meet them, whipping out a pair of shiny handcuffs.

“He graduated. He had his hands around her throat when I got here.”

“Oh. Attempted murder, huh,” Jim said.

“I was just trying to make her listen,” Balfour claimed as Jim slapped the first cuff around the Californian’s wrist.

“Trying to make her listen? She was unconscious,” Adam snapped as he helped to twist Balfour’s other arm back to meet the already cuffed one. “In fact, I’d like to get back inside to her,” he said to Lovell. “By the way. Her mother set this up. Stupid woman!”

“You got that right,” Jim Lovell said. “I’ll be in to take Xandra’s statement as soon as a squad car gets here to haul our problem child off to the station house. You know, I’m tempted to charge her mother as an accessory.”

“Be my guest,” Adam said, then turned away to go offer comfort to the woman he loved.

A
fter Adam shoved Michael out the door, Xandra wandered into her parents’ elegant parlor and sank onto the white leather sofa. The room wasn’t the sort to soothe the spirit. Her mother had been after a modern minimalist look and she’d achieved it, but the iciness of her personality had come through in all the hard edges and cold steel and glass. It was elegant, but harsh and jarring.

She looked up a few minutes later as Adam’s soft foot treads drew her attention. He glanced around as he entered the room, and grinned.

“And you and Mark called our house a mausoleum. Is that sofa made of marble, too?”

She shook her head. “Mother got into minimalist decorating when they traveled to Japan.” Xandra smiled sadly, not ready for jokes. “Did Michael say if my father helped set me up too?”

“He only mentioned your mother,” Adam an
swered, making his way over to sink onto the sofa next to her.

Then he did the one thing she needed most. He opened his arms to her. She fell against his hard chest as he enfolded her in the security of his embrace.

Leaning back, he took her weight and said, “I’m so sorry, honey.”

“How could my father not be involved? The front door was open. They never do that. And someone opened those gates.”

“The gates were locked when I got here. I thought you knew the code. I had to climb over.”

Not an easy task considering the wicked-looking spikes on the top. Xandra lifted her head and looked up at Adam, feeling happiness bloom inside her in spite of what her parents had or hadn’t done. She smiled. “My hero. You just need a white horse.”

He kissed her on the forehead. “I’m not a hero, honey. I was just a guy afraid for my girl. You are my girl, aren’t you?”

“Is that what you want?”

“I want a lot more—”

“Guess what I found in bad boy’s car,” Jim Lovell asked as he walked into the sunken living room. “Oops, sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

Adam sighed and sat up. “We’ll just pick up where we left off after all this is cleared up.” He gave her a look that said she could count on it.

“What is the meaning of this?” her mother’s strident voice and high-heeled shoes echoed from the foyer. Then she barreled in, looking in the pink of
health. “Alexandra, how dare you bring strangers into my house! And what is
he
doing here?” she demanded, pointing at Adam.

Adam took his arm from around Xandra but picked up her hand and kissed it, clearly not intimidated a whit by the infamous Mitzy Lexington on a tear. He didn’t say a word. He just stared at her, his lips pursed in an angry line. The man radiated hostility. There was also a change in the affable Jim Lovell’s demeanor. He’d instantly transformed into a very stern Lieutenant Lovell, State Police Detective.

“You’re just in time to join the discussion,” Lovell said, turning to her mother.

“I want you out of this house, sir.”

“It doesn’t matter what you want, ma’am, this house is now a crime scene.”

Defiant, her mother arched a professionally shaped eyebrow. “Have we been robbed? Everything looks just as it should.”

“Then maybe you ought to take a look at your daughter’s bruised throat,” Adam suggested.

“Alexandra!” her father shouted as he hurried into the room. “The officer out front told me what happened. How on earth did Michael get in here?”

“I opened the door and he was standing there,” Xandra said, almost afraid to hope her father hadn’t been a part of Michael and her mother’s little conspiracy.

“Come in, Mr. Lexington,” Lieutenant Lovell said. “You’re just in time. I was about to ask a related
question. One I’m sure we’ll all have a great interest in getting an answer to. Please be seated.”

Her father sat. Her mother crossed her arms and stood stubbornly where she was.

“Mrs. Lexington, we could always do this in an interrogation room,” the lieutenant snapped.

Her mother sat. “Fine, but I don’t like your tone.”

He ignored her. “Suppose you tell me what happened, Xandra. And what you can remember him saying,” he added as he took out his notebook.

Xandra was surprised by how quickly she could tell the tale and how easy it was to do with Adam holding her hand. Then Adam told what had happened from his point of view.

“Okay, now that we have what happened established, I have a question to ask both of you,” he said, directing his comment to her parents.

“When I came here in May, I warned you both that her ex-husband was dangerous and had sent a threatening note. I wonder if either of you would care to explain this?” He bent next to his chair and picked up a plastic bag with a remote control inside. “I tried it. It’s a remote control to your front gates. It was on Michael Balfour’s front seat.”

“Mitzy Lexington, what did you
do?
” her father demanded, his face taking on a dull red flush.

The lieutenant shook his head, clearly disgusted. “Before your wife answers that, I’m thinking that in view of the impending charge of assault and battery and attempted murder against her former son-in-law, I should read your wife her rights.”

Xandra stared in shock. “Jim, I don’t want my mother arrested,” she rushed to say.

Lieutenant Lovell nodded. “I’ll take that under advisement. Along with what I hear.
If
Mrs. Lexington wants to waive her rights.”

“She does, Detective,” her father said.

“I’m not sure, Geoffrey,” her mother replied.

Her father glared. “That wasn’t a request, Mitzy. Answer the detective.”

Mitzy blinked, clearly not used to being told what to do by anyone. “I gave the gate remote to Michael earlier and left the door opened so they’d have a private place to talk. He just wanted to talk. He said he missed her.”

“And the chest pain? That was all an act to get me away from here?” Geoffrey Lexington asked. “What was the original plan before I came home unexpectedly?”

Her mother shifted nervously in her chair. “I was supposed to call her and ask her to come over. I thought I’d offer her some of my mother’s jewelry, but then you came home, Geoff. I had to think of something.”

Adam sat forward. “You didn’t think he was dangerous? After Jim showed you that letter? What, you thought he was such a nice guy he was worried about my health and that my kid might be accident-prone? Look at what he did to your daughter.”

She glanced Xandra’s way, dropping her gaze to the bruises Michael had left behind, and shook her head. “I don’t understand. He’s from such a good
family, and he always seemed like such a gentle man.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” Adam’s voice rose. “That
gentleman
had his hands around your daughter’s throat. Xandra told you he was dangerous. The detective told you.”

“But—”

“But nothing, Mitzy,” Geoffrey cut in.

Jim Lovell stood. “I think I have all I need. At your daughter’s request, you won’t be charged with anything. Unfortunately, I can’t arrest people for being stupid. If I did, the jails would be full. I hope you realize how close you came to being charged with criminal conspiracy, not to mention almost losing your daughter.” He looked at Xandra and Adam. “I’ll need you each to come to the barracks to sign your statements when they’ve been processed. Xandra, do you need to go to the ER?”

“I’m fine. I think he’d unintentionally cut off the blood flow to my head. I really don’t think he was trying to kill me. As I said, he seemed to want me to go home with him.”

“I’m still charging him with attempted murder. That way I can try to force a plea bargain to the assault charge and save you from a trial, but he’ll still do time. Xandra, I’m afraid I’ll still need photos of your injuries as evidence.”

Xandra nodded. She’d forgotten they’d need that. Another humiliating experience, thanks to Michael.

Adam sat back and put his arm around her, pulling
her close to his side. “I’m sorry, honey,” he whispered, and gave Jim Lovell a salute goodbye.

Adam held Xandra, knowing full well that Jim’s departure didn’t signal an end to the confrontations. He intended to ask Xandra to consider marriage to him. Maybe soon, maybe sometime in the future. He had no idea if she was ready for a step like that considering how badly her last marriage had turned out for her. But he still needed her to know how he felt, and that he’d wait till she was ready.

With that in mind, there were family issues to be worked out. Namely, ancient history of the Capulet and Montague variety. He couldn’t let their lives or Mark’s become a battleground for real and imagined offenses. And he got the perfect opportunity the second the front door closed behind Jim Lovell.

“I suppose this is going to be in the paper,” Mitzy Lexington complained.

“Is that all you care about?” Xandra asked.

“Of course not. I never meant for any of this to happen. You have to know that.”

“No. I don’t know that, Mother. That day I came here, running from him, you turned me away from those gates. I had to walk to the New Life Inn. Ten miles, Mother. In a denim jacket in November.”

“Wait a minute,” her father said, confusion infusing his voice. “Xandra, you came here first?” He glared at his wife. “And you turned her away? You told me she was living in a women’s shelter as a ploy
to embarrass Michael into coughing up more alimony.”

“Mother!” Xandra turned to Mitzy, her eyes wide with shock. “Is that what Michael told you? And you believed him? Don’t you know me at all? I walked away from that marriage with the only thing I wanted—my freedom. I begged you for help and you took Michael’s side over mine. You believed him, not your own daughter. Just like you did my whole life whenever I told you Jason had hurt me.”

Her mother’s frown became more pronounced. “Let us not get into your sibling rivalry with your poor, deceased brother,” Mitzy said, her nose in the air.

“There was no rivalry. There was
fear!
My poor, deceased brother was a
monster.
Quite frankly, I thank God he died when he did.”

“Alexandra!” both Xandra’s parents gasped at once.

Adam was a little surprised himself. His gutsy gal was more than ready to wield the Montagues’ sword for them, Adam thought with pride, but he was still taken aback. It seemed such a harsh thing to hear from Xandra.

“Do you want to know why I say that?” she asked her parents. “After all, he was out of my life where he couldn’t torture and abuse me anymore. Father?”

Her mother started to stand, but her father nodded, a resigned expression on his face, and put his hand on his wife’s and nodded at the chair. “Maybe it’s time we listened to our daughter and put aside pre
conceived notions. You convinced me she was making the same kind of false accusations against Michael that she’d made against Jason her whole life.”

“Well, that was Michael’s theory,” Mitzy replied.

Her father’s frown deepened. “Maybe she wasn’t accident-prone as a child. Maybe we shouldn’t have believed Jason, either.”

“Very well,” Mitzy said, her lips in a pinched line.

With an expression like that, Adam had to wonder if she’d really listen.

Xandra took a deep breath. “Okay. Beth didn’t lie. Jason flattered her, lured her away from the school and raped her. Cole Taggert had seen them from his classroom and was suspicious because he knew Jason’s reputation. Cole followed as soon as class was out, but he didn’t get there in time to stop the rape.

“You’ve both always contended that Jason was too smart to rape a girl who could easily tell the world what he’d done. Except that Beth was never supposed to be able to tell anyone. Jason fully intended to kill her. He had the knife stabbed into the dirt next to Beth’s face the whole time.”

“No. No! That can’t be,” her mother cried. “Not my Jason.”

“Why not?” Adam interjected, unable to keep silent a second longer. “You were blind to your son-in-law’s true nature. Why can’t you be just as wrong about the past as you were about the present?”

Mitzy pursed her lips. “I refuse to believe it.”

“Think,
will you, Mitzy?” Geoffrey said. “You have to stop going through life deciding things are
one way when the truth is they’re another. You almost got our daughter killed. It ends here.”

Xandra stood, so Adam followed suit.

“You can go on pretending life is the way you want it, Mother,” she said. “Or you can face the truth. But here’s the way my life is going to go from here on. I love this man. I intend to marry him one day. Adam, Mark, Elizabeth and Jack and their children, and all the children Adam and I have, will be my family. You’re welcome to be a part of that family and that future, or you can leave me and mine alone. “I’ve given you a lot to think about. So think. But right now, I’m leaving. Mark must be frantic.”

She turned and stalked out. Adam followed. She’d descended the steps when she stopped and turned slowly.

Her gaze rose to his and, as it did, so did the color in her cheeks. “I can’t believe I said all that.”

“She deserved it.” He smirked, knowing she meant what she’d said about the two of them.

“I mean about
us!
I’m sorry. I can’t believe I let her make me so angry. Just ignore everything I said about us.”

“Everything?” Adam pretended disappointment and sat down on the top marble step. With her standing three steps lower, she was just about eye level with him.

“No, not everything. I love you. Of course you shouldn’t disregard that.”

“You mean, you didn’t mean it? You’re going to renege and not marry me? I admit being proposed to
in front of the bride’s family was a little odd, but I thought it would be a great story to tell Mark and all those children you were talking about.”

When all she did was stare at him, her mouth slightly agape, he couldn’t hold the dejected expression any longer and grinned.

She crossed her arms, trying and failing to look stern, and then she grinned too. “I said
children.
I don’t remember mentioning a number that translates to
all.”

Adam reached out. She took his hand, and he pulled until she stood on the first step, between his knees. He looked at her standing there with the breeze stirring her hair and her eyes sparkling with happiness and wanted to give her the world.